Cinque Terre

Oh my gosh, Cinque Terre is amazing. And I thought Lake Como was beautiful. It doesn't get any better than Cinque Terre! Beautiful cliffs, on the Mediteranean Sea, hanging out with three gorgeous girls... I mean come on!

So I made it down safely to the Cinque Terre. First we had lunch! Addie is also adventurous with food, so we tried the fun stuff on the menu (that I had been wanting to my entire trip in Italy, but I like to split things and not order it all you know). So we had some Octupus (not so good, but memorable), and some other things I can't recall now.

Next we had some Gelato and wandered along the harbor of Vernazza (best harbour). Next we took the train to Monterosso al Mare. We wandered along the beach and hid from the rain. Stopped for some wine, and sat for a bit, then headed back to Manarola (our base town). Caitlin and Laura Beth gathered their belongings and we bid them farewell as they took the train out to Paris for their flight home.

Addie and I wandered the cities, took the trail to Riomaggiore, and ate dinner at a restaurant. We split the pasta with shellfish from the cliffs (not so good) along with the fish of the evenings (sold in 5 euros per 100g), which was outstanding! Watched the sunset and ate gelato and then went to bed. What a day!!

The next day, Friday, Addie and I got up and headed out. We wanted to take a train then a boat ride, but we misread the train schedule and waited for a really long time. Finally the trian came and we headed to Monterossa al Mare where we got on a boat. It was an incredible boat ride along the coat, lasting about 45 minutes or maybe less, but absolutely delightful anyways. Back to Riomaggiore and then we took a train back to Manarola for Addie to catch her train to Rome and her flight home.

Left alone for the afternoon in Manarola, I decided to wander the trails a bit, stop by the beach for a little while (and get really sunburnt unfortunately), and enjoy the evening watching the sunset and talking to the other travellers watching it. I met some cool kids on vacation from Canada after having just graduated all in engineering (yay!).

So I'm cheap, but not only that, but to make sure I got to the airport on time, I decide to skip out on the hostel that Friday night and instead take the 1:00AM train back to Milano for my flight out. Wow that was a terrible idea. I made it of course to Milan at 7am, completely exhausted. My flight was at 13.00 (though the earliest train I could take in the morning put me in Milano at 11.00, not really enough time).