Baking in the Cinque Terre

Yesterday was fabulous! Great locale, great travel companions, a great time all around. Sunday night, Janelle, Natalie, and I decided to take the earliest train out of Florence and go to Cinque Terre, the 5 coastal fishing villages on the Northwestern coast of Italy.

Trains, as you may have guessed, are no my forte, but we managed to get on an early one (6:50) and headed out. We rode through Pisa and strained to see the Tower...but no such luck. Apparently it's not right next to the train tracks.

We arrived in La Spezia, bought our 5 euro ticket to Cinque Terre...which allows you ride the trains from city to city all day and hike between them. We started off in Monterosso. All the cities are so cute and little and very "typical." It's exactly what you'd picture a coastal fishing village to be like.

The hike between Monterosso and Vernazza was the longest and most difficult. It was hot and the sun was pretty strong. Natalie and I ended up with a decent sunburn while Janelle, whose skin is better suited for the sun, probably got more of a tan. We chose to start at the fartherst city (Monterosso) and do that hard hike first so we could take it a little easier as we continued through the day.

WOW! It was gorgeous, hot and quite a difficult hike! Skinny 1-1 /2 foot wide trails, tons and tons of stairs made of rocks to climb up the steep coastal hills. Some gorgeous views, though! I was glad to have the company. It would have been WAY more tedious to have done that on my own like I'd been planning. We decided that Cinque Terre would be an ideal honeymoon spot, too...lots to do, very cute and charming...and, in the off season, would be quiet and AMAZING! There are small beaches, there are sunbathing rocks, there's the sea, the hills, the shopping, the restaurants. It was awesome!

In Vernazza we treated ourself to some much deserved gelato (I got a fruity sherbet kind) and then took the ferry from Vernazza, past Corniglia, to the 4th of the five towns (I can't remember its name right now). From there, we walked to Riomaggiore, the 5th town, decided we were hot, COMPLETELY exhausted, and ready to head back to Florence.

After the 2 1/2 hour train ride, we treated ourselves to dinner at a Florentine Trattoria. We bought a bruschetta appetizer...it had the toasted bread with different toppings. One was chopped olives (mmm!), another was smoked salmon and cheese (not that great), another was typical bruschetta with tomatoes, basil and olive oil (awesome) and the fourth was some sort of liver pate. It was weird...not my favorite, but not the most disgusting thing I'd ever eaten. I don't really plan on making it a habit of eating liver, though. I had spinach gnocchi in a pomadora sauce and tried Natalie's pesto pasta and Janelle's florentine crepes. Afterwards, we treated ourselves to a shared ice cream with fudge sauce. We thought it would be chocolate cake with ice cream, but at that point, in our exhausted state, we didn't care.

They head off to Rome today, so I said goodbye. It's strange...because I really felt like I'd become good friends with them in the short time we were together. And yes, we'll swap pictures, but beyond that, there's not a lot of foundation for friendships to be maintained. That's the hard thing, I think. It's meeting such great people...and then being willing to let them go. I guess that's a difficult thing for me to do. But, it's a good life lesson, too. You've got to know how to let go of people and enjoy the memories.

At my hotel, I washed my laundry, packed up and got to bed. I've got lots to do today...and not a lot of time to do it.

I'll try and add pictures later. Next time, though, I'm going to learn how to better use the technology available to me...BEFORE I go.