Cinque Terre, Italy

Cinque Terre was easily the most beautiful place I have ever seen.  From the the sunrises on top of the mountain to the sunsets on the ocean along the cliffs.  Before we even got there we met these American kids who are now living in Italy but were so relieved to finally see other Americans.  About 40 minutes before we got there we followed the ocean coastline the rest of the way there.  The train was hot but it was worth it once we stepped off.  We walked through a tunnel to get to Riomaggiore, the first town of Cinque Terre, and where we spent both nights.  There were 11 of us traveling and I got placed into the 3 bedroom hostel, which was actually two beds, but much nicer than the place the other nine had to stay in.  We had to check out the ocean view before dinner and we wern't disappointed. Riomaggiore was one of my favorite spots of the five next to Vernazza.  We ate a small restaurant called Ristorante La Lampara there which was very good.  I got the pesto pizza, because Cinque Terre is known for their pesto, and it was very good.  I also had a glass of their red wine which was excellent as well.

After dinner we went to the beach for at least two hours and watched the sunset, which seemed to be the best sunset I have ever seen, maybe because of the place I was in.  We chilled on the side of the cliff and ate gelato.  Than we went to a bar just up from us and stayed there most of the night.  The stars were really bright and we could hear the ocean hitting the rocks below us.  I got some really good pictures from the sunset on and the one of Riomaggiore is my favorite.  

The next morning me and my two roommates for weekend, Kyle and John, walked up the mountain at 6 A.M. to catch the sunrise. We saw two homeless people sleeping on a playground halfway up.  If I remember, There were 471 steps going up that led to the road, and once we got to the road we still kept going up.  The view was amazing and we could see the other towns as well.  It was well worth the early morning.  We even got a self timed camera to take a photo of us at the top.  

Because of the hills and mountains that are in this area, they don't have semataries, they bury their deceased in these, which were located near the top of the mountain.  

After our adventure we met everyone for breakfast at 9.  I had a banana and nutella crepe which was a great way to start the day.  We started our day after breakfast on the Via dell'Amore, the Path of Love.  Along the way there were thousands of locks representing couples who are linked together.  The path was on the side of the cliff and led into the next town of Manarolo.  

This last picture is a view of Manarolo near the end of the Via dell'Amore.  This is where we went to next.  It was another very pretty place, but their wasn't too much to do here and we didn't spend too much time.  

We took the train to Corniglia and walked up the 370 stairs to reach the top and the town. But once you got there we had to walk up more too.  The view from here was different because it wasn't down at the water level like most towns and we could see everything.  There were a few more restaurants here and stores.  We ate lunch in the Shady Courtyard.  I had a steak which is abnormal here because your only supposed to order pasta or pizza because were in Italy.  But the steak was very good.  

We then took another train to the fifth town, Monterosso.  Monterosso is known for their beach which is the only sandy beach of the five towns.  This was easily the busiest place and had many tourists.  There was almost nowhere to walk or sit on the beach, there were people everywhere.  The town itself was actually up the hill, where they had a really cool church and monks that sing there 24 hours a day.  But they had many stores, bars, and restaurants on the water, sort of like a boardwalk.  The water was very warm and really clear, at any of the towns, but salty there in Monterosso.  A couple of us got Fruit Coladas.  They were molto bene.  I didn't take any pictures here, sorry.  

We went back to Riomaggiore and got showers and went back to the fourth town, Vernazza for dinner.  This might have been my favorite town.  They had a great down town, swimming area with boats and just very picturesque.  We made it there for the sunset which was amazing again before we ate dinner.  We ate along the cliffs at an amazing place.  The waiters were so nice and the food was absolutely fantastic.  They gave us complimentary Champagne and a complimentary glass of Cinque Terre's famous wine, Sciachetra.  Our seafood spaghetti was one of the best meals I have ever had, and we had an amazing time there together.  

Monday we slept in till 8:30 which felt really nice and just ate fruit for breakfast.  We had to check out at 10 and after we did that we headed straight to the cove and beach of Riomaggiore.  It was very pretty and less salty.  I was diving off some rocks which was fun and walked around a lot.  For lunch we went to another place along the beach and had really good tuna, tomatoes, and cheese.  The tuna was fantastic.  Some of the people went back to Vernazza for the afternoon but half of stayed to find some cliff jumping.  About an hour and a half before we had to leave we found a really good spot that we could jump from.  You could jump anywhere from 20-60 ft off this cliff.  I had to test it out first and once we thought it was safe got addicted to doing it and went up to about 60 ft.  It was so much fun.  It was near the beach and tourist spot too so we were really drawing in a crowd too.

We hated to leave but the train ride home was a highlight in itself.  It was such a fun ride even though it took us guys two hours longer than the group that was with us but made a train reservation.  It all started when we got on the train with our burger king and started eating it. Half way through we realized we were in first class and had to move.  After five minutes in our new seats someone looked at their ticket and thought we were in the wrong compartment.  So we moved again.  Turned out, we were in the right compartment and had to walk back to the same seats with everyone staring at us.  We could not stop laughing and the girl sitting next to us had to turn away because she was laughing so hard at us.  That happened before we even left the station in Milan too.  It was a great trip.  Then back to Milan in the morning for a day trip.  It was a lot of train for that short time span.