Cinque Terre & Pisa, Italy

Well my first stop in Italy was in the national park of Cinque Terre. It is this area of 5 small towns clinging to the cliffs in the Italian Rivera surrounded by green hills and vineyards. I arrived there and met a girl on the train from Canada who was my age and headed there also. Then once we got there, we met a boyfriend & girlfriend from Australia, and 2 other girls from Australia. We all happened to be staying at the same hostel so we headed off there together. Now you have to love small towns because we got there around 4 and the office was closed from 4 to 6 for whatever reason, so we went and grabbed a yummy pasta dinner before heading back.

The next day we did a 5 hour, 12 mile hike between all of the towns. It was very beautiful, but very hard. It took us through the hills and had some amazing views of the ocean and the cliffs and the towns as you came into them. It began easy and then got harder as you went. We were getting pretty tired. On the way, there was this older couple on the trail who had managed to drop their camera and memory stick down into some brush over the side of the path, which was a bit of a drop after the brush. They were trying so hard to get it and a bunch of us saw what they were trying to do. So.....we ended up making a big human chain and lowering one of the girls down into the brush to get it for them. They were so thrilled and excited that it was retrieved they kept thanking everyone and giving the girls who went down kisses and saying "Grazie! Grazie!"

After that little adventure, we kept going and almost quit after we reached the 4th town cause we were so tired and the water was looking really good. We toughed it out though and kept going. Between the 4th and 5th town, it was pretty much and hour straight up stairs and hills and then an hour straight down. The path at that point was so narrow that there were times when only 1 person could fit through so you had to wait until people came through and then you could go. There were also times it was litterally a straight drop down. If one of us had slipped, you could have been seriously hurt. By the time we hit the last town, we were exhausted and never so excited to see anything in our lives! We sat down at the first place we saw and grabbed some Brucetta and wine.

That night, we made a yummy pasta dinner with pesto. This region of Italy is the birthplace of pesto, so it was really amazing. We then all went and grabbed dessert, met a newlywed couple on their honeymoon who joined us, met another couple our age who joined us, and met another gyu from Minesotta who joined us. By the end, we had quite the group.

The next day, we headed out for some snorkeling. The water was beautiful and blue and clear. You could see tons of fish and we just swam through them. They were all over. The water here is supposed to be the most beautiful outside of the Greek Isles. Luckily, some of us got in earlier, so we only had to aviod a few jellyfish. Later on, when we were laying out, they were swarming the water and a couple of people in our group became victims and got stung.

The few days I was there was really great, but this area unfortunately has become very touristy. It is quite beautiful though.

I left with the couple from Canada we met and we all went to Pisa together. They were staying there for the night and I had to transfer trains there anyways on my way to Florence. I dropped my stuff in their room and we all headed off to see the leaning tower. There is not much to see in Pisa, but the leaning tower. So we went, looked around a bit and of course took some pictures of us " holding up" the tower. Then we grabbed some lunch together before I continued on to Florence.

This stop was great just because all of us that met in Cinque Terre happened to get along great and loved hanging out together. It was lots of fun and we got to see some amazing sites!