Cinque Terre

Word of the Post: Cosi sei serio? (Why so serious?)

The word of the post actually has nothing to do with today’s entry, but I thought it was worth posting. Today in class we learned many popular adjectives and the word serious was one of them. I was then asked to give a sentence using this adjective. I decided to go with The Joker’s signature phrase. It got a few good laughs from the class.

Sunday about fifty of us went to the beautiful Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre is approximately 2 hours from Florence. In Cinque Terre there are five towns. We started our trip by taking the train from an outside town to the first town of Riomaggiore. From there, we walked along the “Via Dell’Amore” (The path of love) to the second town named Manarola.

When we arrived at Manarola we were set free to do as we pleased. We could have either walked along the trail to the following three towns, or taken the train to the town we wished to go see. Our group decided that hiking a little bit would be a great idea. Our little bit of a hike turned into an 8 mile hike along the Terranio Sea. …an uphill hike along the Tyrrhenian Sea.

During our walk from Manarola to the third town we were greeted by a step’s course. In one portion of the trail we walked up a set of 382 steps. How is that for a work out?

We then continued along the trail. After reaching the third town, we decided to continue our hike onto the third town named Vernazza. This happened to be the most beautiful town that we encountered. This was the type of town that you would think of if you were to envision in your mind traditional Italy. Here, there were clothes hanging out windows, people crowding the streets, the smell of pizza coming from vendors along the path, and colorful townhouses lining the roads. Absolutely beautiful.

From here, we took the train to the last town—Monterosso. Monterosso was where the beach was located. There, we were able to go swimming, lay out, and just relax. The sea here was the saltiest water I have ever encountered, and the tide was slightly rough (too rough to go cliff jumping like most of us had hoped to do). I made it out to a point where I could still touch the ground with my feet, and then my friend Lance told me that I was missing out and against my will grabbed my arm and dragged me out to sea where I couldn’t touch the ground. After hiking 8 miles it was safe to say that we were tired so we immediately swam back into land and got changed, before catching the last train back to our bus.

Cinque terre is by far the most beautiful thing I have seen yet. Here, the water was clear blue, the landscaping was simply amazing, and the towns were absolutely worth seeing. I just wish I had, had more time to spend along the beautiful sea.

Look at how blue the water is:

Ciao