Cinque Terre

We left Venice on May 26th and headed to the west coast of Italy. We took a long train ride through Bologna to La Spezia and then a bus ride to our hostel. While we were waiting for the bus, we decided to stop and get dinner. We didn't find man restaurants in La Spezia but after walking a little, we found a bar that served food. We sat down and each had some iced tea and ordered our pasta. I had to use the bathroom so I made my way to the bathroom only to discover that they didn't have toilets. Nope, they only had squatty potties, as Sohae calls them. There was just a porcelain hole in the ground. I though maybe I had walked into the men's bathroom but nope, it was a unisex bathroom. And I really had to go. It was gross. Sohae said those bathrooms are all over Korea but I just crossed my fingers and hoped that since this was a dirty, old bar, maybe it wasn't that common.

Well then we hopped on the bus and saw two boys we had ridden next to on the train from Bologna. They were American. And they seemed to be heading to the same hostel we were. So that was comforting. We all checked into the hostel in the nearby Biassa, and Sohae and I called it an early night.

The next morning we took a shuttle bus down to Cinque Terre [ching-kway ter-ay], which is a series of old fishing towns along the coast of the Mediterranean. In english Cinque Terre means Five Lands. So there were five town running from north to south along the coast. The northmost one is Monterosso, then Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and finally Riomaggiore. The shuttle dropped us off at the southmost town, Riomaggiore and we explored the town for a little while and made our way to the train station to take the train to Monterosso to begin our hike.

Sohae's friend Keith from Mizzou who studied in England this past semester had already been to Cinque Terre with his friends a month earlier and told us that we should take the red hiking path which goes north through the mountains, instead of the easier blue hiking path which goes along the sea. He said it was much better. So we took his advice and set out with our map. We hiked up and up and up. After about an hour and a half of intense hiking, we realized we were lost. And we don't know how it happened! Sohae and I are both very spacially oriented, very good at reading maps and following directions and knowing where we are. But somehow we got lost. And we didn't know where we went wrong. I mean, the map wasn't very detailed so that could have been it. But we tried to get back on track and continue and we tried asking for help but nothing worked. We ended up having to retrace our steps and head back to Riomaggiore. But we weren't that disappointed. It was an adventure and we got some good exercise and had a lot of laughs.

(side note, this was the day I wore my Mizzou shirt and a bunch of people were like, "Oh, Mizzou!" One kid even had the nerve to say, "Go KU" haha. It was nice to see so many people from the states. There were also a bunch of British people too. But it wasn't as obnoxiously touristy as Venice or Florence or Rome. The perfect mixture of tourists and local Italian culture.)

So in Riomaggiore we headed to the start of the blue hiking trail, which was "easier." NOT! And by the time we started hiking, it had started to sprinkle. So he hiked along the sea, up more mountains, through vinyards and forests. We might have complained a little, but we weren't serious. The rain didn't bother us, in fact it cooled us down and we took breaks to just sit and stare at our surroundings. But we hiked for hours. The blue path was only slightly easier than the red path. But I thought it was much more beautiful. We saw some fools hiking with flip flops and I felt so bad for them. It was slippery and muddy and I fell a few times. It was quite an adventure.

Well we made it to the next town, Vernazza, and we stopped for lunch. I had a pizza with peppers and Sohae had a huge calzone. And we split a glass of the local wine Sciachetra. It was DELICIOUS! It tasted almost like blueberries. But it was expensive so we only had a tiny glass.

After our rest, we continued on to the next town but we forgot to fill up our water bottles. Huge mistake. We sweated so much and we felt like death. And I had to pee really badly. Leaving Vernazza, we just wanted to finish up our day and we didn't prepare much before we left town. Well the second leg of our hike that day was even longer. But we STILL had fun. We may have been drained but we were just so happy. The coast was so beautiful, and our endorphins were flowing. I can't explain how beautiful the countryside was. It was breathtaking. Just thinking about it now is making me smile. I wish pictures fully captured its beauty, but they never do, do they?

So, we finally made it to Corniglia and found a water fountain** right before we got into town and each downed a bottle of water right away. Then we headed to the train station to take the train a few stops back to Riomaggiore to get to our hostel. (And we had our daily gelato at sometime during this day)

The next day (5/28) we started our hike in Riomaggiore and headed north on the easiest path, the Via Dell'Amore (the Lover's Path). It was handicap accessible so it was paved and super easy. This day was so beautiful. The sky was cloudless and sunny and it wasn't too hot. We walked at a leisurely pace and in about thirty minutes, made our way to the end of the trail at Manarola. Sadly, the leg from Corniglia to Manarola was closed for some reason so we could do that part. But we explored the town and saw some awesome little coves where people were swimming. We really regretted not bringing our swim suits. The water was a beautiful blue. Sohae and I sat and watched the water and watched the little children swimming. My lifeguard senses made me nervous because the water was so rough but the kids were strong swimmers. We walked to a beach and sat there for a while and let the water lap at our feet. We watched some pretty brave people cliff dive into the lovely blue water and we were so jealous. We found a little garden and park and stayed there for a while. And of course we got gelato.

We caught the shuttle back to our hostel and decided to get dinner in Biassa that day. So we went to a bar/restaurant and there was lots of confusion and miscommunications and we ended up waiting about two hours for our dinner. And it wasn't even good. They didn't even give us free bread like every other table got. Just another example of bad Italian customer service. Frusterated and ready to move on to the next city, we went to bed.

I mean, in all, I love Cinque Terre. It was one of my favorite places in Italy. I loved hiking and I loved the nature. It is one of the very few places I would recommend going to in Italy. It was pretty wonderful.



**Water fountains. I could almost have an entire post on water fountains in Italy. Thank God, they were nearly everywhere. When we got to Bergamo, we noticed these fountains, well more like spiggots coming out of ornate grave stones. And you could get water from them! They were just randomly situated through out the towns and parks and mountains and everywhere! Since there was no free water in restaurants, we took to carrying water bottles everywhere and filling up whenever we saw a fountain. You never knew when you'd come across another and we didn't want a repeat of our hike from Vernazza to Corniglia. So even if our bottles were 3/4 full, we still filled up. And I'm not so picky about my water. Sohae kinda is but luckily she realized that we could not be picky in Italy. It didn't matter if the fountain was clean. All that mattered was that it had water. And the water was fairly clean, not scary looking at all. But it was like getting a present every time we spotted one. We became so excited. So should you go to Italy, be sure to carry a water bottle and fill up whenever you get the chance. Especially when you're in Italy during a heat wave.