Italy = Incredible!

On Thursday, we woke up at 3:30 in the morning to catch our flight to Italy! Helen, Emily and I bid Kathryn, who was going to meet a friend in Greece, a sad goodbye and started off on what I thought would be the most tiring travel day of the trip (once again, I spoke too soon!). I woke up with a sore throat and it got progressively worse throughout the day. I remember this day in a literal haze. Our flight to Italy was very smooth (despite the fact that everyone started clapping upon landing… I thought it was just a European thing and was happy to join in but Helen and Emily, who have both traveled a lot in Europe and had never experienced that, were wondering if we had unwittingly survived a near-death experience. We were laughing about that in a sort of freaked-out way when they played a fanfare over the intercom, making it that much more ridiculous!).

We had to take three trains after that to get to Riomaggiore, the city in Cinque Terre in which we were staying. It was a huge struggle in the Pisa airport to figure out our train tickets. Let me just say that Italy is bad at trains. They are efficient and on time but there are no signs and it is pretty much like they expect you to have the map of Italy memorized in order to know which train to get on. It can make for a real hassle. Plus, I felt so yucky and it was made worse by how tired I was—I napped every time we got on a plane/train but I always felt even worse each time I woke up. I was so groggy and out of it by the time we got to La Spezia, where we got off the train too early and had to sit and wait in a train station for the next train.

We finally arrived in Riomaggiore by way of a long tunnel—so we didn’t know what was waiting for us outside the train doors. When we stepped off the train, we were greeted by the wide Mediterranean sea, with cliffs and trees on either side. We were on a bridge, and this magnificent view was literally two steps away. It didn’t even feel like a train station. We ran to the edge of the bridge to look down at the water, and it was completely breathtaking. It was the best welcome ever!

riomaggiore!
our building is the third one on the left (right next to the building with green scaffolding)

This fairytale only got better as we trekked up the one main street to our hostel. The hostel isn’t one building since the city is so small and hilly; it owns lots of different rooms throughout the city. We followed the man to our room, and were blown away to discover that it was basically sitting on the shore. Our room was up some stairs, and we ran to the window when we got there. We had a view out of a movie—we could see the shore and the rocks and lots of boats, and across from us there were other buildings with real Italians on their balconies and clothes on their real clotheslines. There was also a hill across from us with steep steps that led to a restaurant and down to the rocks.

our building is the one on the right (!!)

riomaggiore!

We went out to explore a little, since it was still light and warm outside, and we ended up walking down the Via dell’Amore, which is the path that connects Riomaggiore with Manarola, the next city. Cinque Terre is made up of five villages and the entire thing is a national park, so there is a trail that connects all the cities. It makes for a great hike if you do the entire thing, but the part between Riomaggiore and Manarola was more of a leisurely stroll, which was perfect after our long day. We took about a billion pictures, for the view was more beautiful than we could have imagined. It is also the path of love, so there were statues and monuments all along the path dedicated to love, and people had put locks with their and their partner’s names on them all along the rails, as per tradition, to lock in their love.

via dell'amore

manarola

That night, we ate dinner at the best little restaurant. We got to eat on the patio and the servers were so nice, especially when we tried to use Italian to order. We had delicious pizza and it was so much fun! We were in bliss.

so excited for gelato and italy!

Unfortunately, I woke up rather sick the next day and had a fever, so I stayed in the room all day while Helen and Emily hiked to the beach. I went with them to dinner that night, but I was pretty out of it and my soup wasn’t very good anyway. I did find a cup of strawberries at the gelato shop on the way home, though.

sunset :)

The next day, it was cloudy, but I was feeling a lot better. We decided to postpone our beach plans for the next day since we were afraid it was going to rain, so Emily and I spent the afternoon exploring the town. We went in every single shop, and it was really really fun! We picked up some good souvenirs and it was quite enjoyable. We had our first pieces of focaccia for lunch, which was to die for. That afternoon, we met back up with Helen and sat out on the rocks with our journals, which was quite agreeable. I also bought a deck of cards, which turned out to be a good purchase, since Emily and I got just a little obsessed with playing card games for the rest of the trip. We also went back to the restaurant we’d first been to this night and it was really fun, although they accidentally brought me meat sauce and I may or may not have eaten a tiny morsel of beef! They brought me a new one though and it was fine… I guess now I can say I tried meat while I was abroad!

relaxing on the rocks :)

The day after was Easter! Luckily, nothing was closed. We did a repeat of Helen and Emily’s hike from Friday but I actually got to go this time, even though I was feeling kind of worse. We walked to Manarola, and from there we took the train to Vernazza, which is supposed to be the most beautiful of the cities. It was certainly the busiest one, but I think it was only the most beautiful from a distance. It was definitely the best view we saw, but it wasn’t my favorite village. We hiked from Vernazza to Monterosso, the last village where there is the best beach. There are no words how to describe how gorgeous the hike was. It was pretty rigorous, too, and we relaxed on the beach with gelato once we got to Monterosso.

hiking!

vernazza!

That night, we tried a new restaurant, and this is noteworthy because I had the best pesto I have ever eaten in my life there. It was SO DELICIOUS. I also got chocolate gelato over strawberries after dinner, which was equally amazing. We ate it sitting on the dock outside our building, which was beautiful and peaceful—until two separate groups of Italian guys came calling, which was just funny.

there were lots of sailboats everywhere!

That night, we had a little adventure in our room. Ever since Emily had taken one good shower on the first day, we hadn't been able to get any hot water in our room, which mystified us since obviously Emily had not used up all the hot water the first day and it had never returned. We eventually decided that there just must be bad plumbing in the village, as if it was some primitive location. So none of us had had a good shower for almost five days, we'd just hopped in and out of the icy water a few times. Well, the last night I was brushing my teeth and I looked up and happened to notice a hot water heater suspended from the ceiling. I started cracking up and pointed it out to the others, since I thought it was funny that we even had a hot water heater in the room and we still couldn't get hot water. Emily came in to examine it and started turning dials but nothing seemed to fix it. She hit the light switch and we started to leave-- but then we noticed a tiny Christmas tree-like light on the water heater that had suddenly illuminated. She had accidentally hit a switch whose purpose we hadn't been able to figure out, so we'd just left it off-- the switch to turn on the hot water heater!! Someone must have turned it off the first afternoon and we hadn't touched it since. We left it on overnight and sure enough, there was hot water in the morning!

the trusty water heater and its light

On Monday, we made our way to Pisa, which wasn’t too difficult. It had gotten quite hot out, which was nice! Most everything in Pisa was closed since it was Easter Monday, so Emily and I had lunch at the first good place we saw—and ended up getting charged 5 euro for a lemonade! From there, we walked to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I have to say that this was a slight disappointment. It was much smaller than I thought it would be! We had fun taking silly pictures by it, though. Afterwards, there wasn’t much else to do. Pisa isn’t actually a very interesting city. We went back to the hostel and hung out until dinner, which was quite fun although the food wasn’t great.

Cinque Terre was amazing. I absolutely loved it. It is the most beautiful place I have ever been to. Even though I didn’t feel good and didn’t even really go to the beach, it was still my favorite place, which says a lot. It was so amazing and tranquil and breathtaking. It is one of my top three favorite places I have been so far in Europe, and I am so, so glad I got to go there. Riomaggiore was a great town to stay in and all the people were so nice. Helen, Emily and I had so much fun together and our surroundings were magnificent. I already want to go back!