Cinque Terre Part 1

Best weekend everrr!!!

We had a free weekend this week and a majority of us decided to go to Cinque Terre while the weather was still warm. Never in my life have I been in so much disbelief about the beauty of a place. It was so beautiful just about everywhere we went. 

We left Thursday after class and finally got to our hostel in Riomaggiore after a bus ride, three train rides, and long walk up about 300 stairs and multiple hills. We lucked out with this hostel, we got two, big, four person rooms with a killer view of the whole town and the ocean. So climbing all those stairs definitely paid off.

The next morning we got our fresh fruit for breakfast and started the hike to the rest of the towns. The hike between Riomaggiore and Manarola is called Via Dell'Amore. This is where couples come and put a lock on different parts of the trail or write their name on any surface they can write on. There is a tunnel that is filled with names and pictures that people have drawn. The whole way you have a gorgeous view of the beautiful blue ocean and the cliffs and towns along the shore.

We didn't stay very long in Manarola, but it was a beautiful little town. Manarola is close to the water so we took a lot of pictures down there. From the water you could look back up at the city and see all the beautiful colored buildings.

The trail from Manarola to Corniglia was closed due to a landslide so we took a train and then climbed up a lot of stairs to the town which is the toughest part of the hike. There we walked through the town a little bit and walked up to a lookout point. This town doesn't have a port and is up on the cliffs so it has a beautiful view of all the towns. Again we didn't stay here too long. Just enough to enjoy it and take some pictures.

The hike from Corniglia to Vernazza was filled with steep stairs going up and down and many hills and more stunning views of the ocean. The trail was very narrow at some parts with a steep hill to your left. My mom would have told me to "hug the wall!" We stayed longer in Vernazza and had some food and gelato. This was one of my favorite towns. This town was right on the water and had all the charm of an Italian town. It was bustling with tourists though and flies...

The next hike to Monterosso was hard. Stopping for so long in Vernazza with a full belly made all of us sleepy so it took a while to gain our momentum back. And this hike started with a lot of stairs. Once we got our momentum back and the stairs started going down it got a lot easier. The recommended time to finish this hike is 2 hours and we blew through it in 1. We booked it. Again the hike was filled with amazing views. When we got to Monterosso, we found a hotel to stay in and then made our way to the beach to eat dinner and check out the town. Then in the morning we went to the beach all day. The weather could not have been more perfect. It was so warm! The water wasn't too cold and it was so clear and blue! I could see all ten of my toes perfectly clearly. I was in heaven. And to top it off we got gelato. Gelato makes everything better.

Then we took a ferry back to Riomaggiore. The ferry ride was the perfect cap to a perfect trip. It was fun to see the trail we walked on and all the little people walking on it. We also got a perfect view of all the cities. When we got to Riomaggiore we looked for another hostel to stay in and we found Mamma Rossa.... Think Bathilda Bagshot from Harry Potter 7, except a little less creepy and not a snake. We got a 6 person room and a 2 person room but ended up putting one more bed in the big room and slept together on one massive bed. This place was weird. Definitely the hostel experience I was thinking of, but we didn't have any other people in our room with us, thank goodness. That night we got dinner and more gelato. My favorite gelato combination is Banana and Crema. Crema is a custard tasting gelato with a hint of citrus and this banana gelato was so natural and fresh tasting. After stuffing our faces with way too much food we went down by the water to soak in everything one last time.

In the morning we headed out on a train to go to church in La Spezia. This ward was bigger than my Siena ward. It was fast and testimony meeting and I heard some of the sweetest testimonies I have ever heard in my life. After church we headed to Pisa to see the one and only Tower of Pisa. My camera died so I will post other people's pictures of this later. It was hilarious seeing everyone pose in the exact same way on the grass. And by the way the tower looks like it is leaning way more in person than in pictures. So go see it for yourself! 

A nutella crepe later we headed home to Siena. It was nice how much Siena felt like home to us all. We kept saying "I can't wait to sleep in my own bed!" And "I can't wait to shower in my own shower!" When I got home my sweet host mom, Pazit, had hot soup waiting for me and a new down comforter on my bed. It was the perfect trip but it feels good to be back in Siena.

I am doing this in 2 parts because I took so many pictures and my roommates took about a million more so I will post some of those later. You can check out their blogs here and here to see more pictures of the program.