This past weekend I went with my friends Jessica and SaraClaire to Cinque Terre. We left at 6:30 AM to head to the train station, expecting to leave at 7:10 at arrive in the Cinque Terre around 11. The train did not leave until 7:40AM and when we got to Pisa I thought we needed to change trains. Turns out we didn't have to change trains, but it was too late. Since it was a two hour wait until the next train, we decided to go find the leaning tower of Pisa! It turned out to be just perfect. We got to the tower, took the stereotypical pictures holding up/pushing down the tower and then walked back to the station. On the way back we stopped at a pastry/chocolate shop and I got a croissant filled with Apricot marmalade. It was delicious!
Once we were back on the train we were golden until we had to switch trains at La Spezia. We ended up having an hour wait for the train so we went and got lunch. That turned out wonderful too because I got a HUGE margarita pizza for only E5! We caught the train from La Spezia and finally arrived in Monterosso. We found our hotel and it was very comfortable. It was nothing too fancy, but it was clean and pretty spacious-all for only E25 each! Not bad!
Then we hopped on the train to go back to Riomaggiore, the southernmost town of the Cinque Terre and were going to work our way back up to number 3. However, once we got on the train it went zooming past all the towns and arrived in La Spezia! We had accidentally gotten on the express train! Thank the Lord the conductor didn't ask to see our tickets because we would've gotten fined! Luckily too we were able to get right back on a train to go back to the town we needed. Once we got off in Riomaggiore we started our amazing walk. We walked between Riomaggiore and Manarola. This walk is called "Via Del'Amore" or "Walk of love". It was very beautiful and not very long at all. Along the path are locks locked to chains, ropes, rails, everything really. The locks represent people locking their love there forever. Pretty cute :) The little towns also had tons of character! From Manarola to Corniglia we had to take a train because the path was closed. Once we arrived in the train station we had to climb 382 steps to get to where the town was located. (I only know how many steps because there was a sign at the top!) It was very beautiful though!
After Corniglia we headed back to our town (Monterosso) and went out to dinner. The place was very nice and the food was excellent. Jessica and I both got pasta with a mushroom sauce and SaraClaire got an amazing Pesto pasta dish. Of course after dinner we had to get gelato too :) We went to bed very early that night and got a great night's sleep. It was perfect!
In the morning we packed up and walked around the sea in Monterosso. Then we got on the train and headed to the last town that we had not seen, Vernazza. Vernazza was very beautiful. We looked in a lot of the different shops, hung out by the sea for a while, and got delicious focaccia bread. Mine had pesto on it! Then Jessica and SaraClaire wanted to look at more shops but I didn't really want to, so I sat on a bench and read my book for a while. It was nice to relax! Once we had burned some time we hopped on the train to La Spezia and from there we returned home with NO PROBLEMS! It was way better than the trip there!
I can't wait for my parents to come because I know my mom really wants to go to Cinque Terre. It is very beautiful, and if the weather is nice I would like to spend more time there and hike some of the longer trails! I know it would be absolutely breathtaking!
Make sure to check out my online photo album for pictures from this trip! Click here to go to the photo site!
You should mention the locks. I'd be confused (by your pictures) if I hadn't already looked at your friend's pictures on facebook...
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