Eurotrip #3: CINQUE TERRE

Hey guys!  I hope ya'll are enjoying all the pictures I've been posting on Facebook!  I post them especially for you creepers, so please, creep away.

Okay let's see..where did I leave off..?

So, you know how many times you can plan or practice something but when it comes to the actual thing you’re like a chicken running around with it’s head cut off?  Yeah, that was Caity and I on our way to Cinque Terre.

We left Interlaken in the morning and headed off to Italy on our 11-hour train ride!  We got off our first train in Bern and our next one was only 10 minutes from then, on the opposite platform.  The train was holding a bunch of semi trucks, but normally the train gets to the station 5 to 10 minutes before it departs.  So this train was already at the platform and we were like, well I guess let’s just get on it!  So we hopped on it and walked in, and we were in a little kitchen area.  Then we walked a little past that and then we were in a sleeping corridor.  We decided that we were probably on the wrong train and were walking to get off, and then suddenly the train started moving.  We were like ohhhhhhhh crap.  We had no idea where we were going or when the next stop was, if there even was another stop.  You could say we were a little freaked out.  But there was nothing we couldn’t do about it so we just sat down in the freezing cold kitchen.

About 10 minutes later some really fat German guy with a beard wearing a huge wife-beater and underwear only walked into the kitchen and took a double take at us with a puzzled look and kept on walking to the bathroom.  A few seconds later another guy came out and asked what we were doing there.  We told him our whole story.  Fortunately we were heading in the right direction with a stop in about an hour.  He told us that the whole train was full of German truck drivers and Caity and I were just like uhhhhhhhh awkwarddd.  So about an awkward hour later, we were almost to out destination then an angry German man came out of his room and started yelling at us!  The other two guys in the kitchen were explaining to him what happened but all he kept saying was “All of us truck drivers! You no truck driver! You can no be on this train!” Then he started making motions with his hands like we were going to get handcuffed. THANK GOODNESS our stop was like 3 minutes later, or this guy might have ripped our heads off.

We finally got off the train and onto the right one!  A few hours and trains later we got to the hotel! And yes, I said hotel!  Since our last hostel sucked (cough cough Bulmer's) we just couldn't take another one after all of our adventures.  Sooo....we splurged :)  And not just a little bit, we went 4-star hotel on those hostels butts.  We got a BEAUTIFUL see view hotel, tip-toeing on the edge of a cliff.  I though Interlaken was pretty, but it had no comparison to Cinque Terre.  It was dark when we got there but we could hear the waves crashing against the sand and rocks.  I was just so happy to finally hear that sound :)

Only where the best stay in Cinque Terre!

right at the railing of the hotel!!

The next morning after we got ready, we walked into the hallway and looked out the window and the ocean was seriously right outside.  The water was sparkling blue and it was sooo pretty!  We got down to the village, walked around and ate breakfast the headed to the first village, Riomaggiore.  The hike from village 5 to 4 was called Via dell'Amore, so there were people writing “name+name 4ever!” and there were lock padlocks everywhere throughout the trail.   Every view was breath taking.  We couldn’t stop taking pictures, it was insane. 

View on the beach from our hotel

errday

The first hike

More love padlocks!

Too many beautful pictures for one blog post

Then we got to Manarola and walked around with yummy gelato in our hands. And headed to trail numero 2. But once we got back onto to the trail, we found out that trails 2 and 3 were closed.  We couldn’t understand why, but then we remember that were was a huge flood and mudslide at the end of October in Cinque Terre and it devastated 2 out of the 5 villages, including 2 of the hiking trails.  That ddn't stop us from taking another crazy amount of pictures though!  Once again, the view was breath-taking!!  The mountains fell perfectly into the Mediterranean Sea to make it the prettiest view I've ever seen.  Anyways we were kinda bummed at first that the trails were closed, but then we just hopped onto the train, skipped corniglia and went straight to Varnazza!

Numer 78

Manarola!

Manarola again!

Never gets old

Yes, I took this picture.  No it is not from Pinterest :)

 We got off of the train and walked down into the village.  Once we got there, it looked like a beautifully tragic ghost town.  We could tell that this city got hit the hardest from the floods five months ago.  The beach was covered in rocks and clay, the buildings had all the paint scratched off of them and they were virtually empty.  They even still had spray paint on them from the clean up.  The only habitable looking buildings were the few beachfront ones.  There were a couple shops and two outdoor places to eat.  Caity and I grabbed our second cone of gelato and sat down near the sea watching the construction men start the cleanup of the beach.  Later we grabbed some pizza and just basked in the warm sunlight.  It was a beautiful village despite the tragedy of it.

The horrible flood damage on the beutiful city

What used to be an amazing beach

Still beautiful though!!

Our sea-side view during lunch :)

From there we found the trail to Monterosso.  Although this was only our second trail, we decided that it was the hardest out of all of them.  We scaled the mountains, hopped over waterfalls and walked on trails a foot wide with a drop of dozens of feet below.  Every five steps was another beautiful view of the ocean, the mountain, the cities or all of the above.  We had to refrain from taking pictures once every minute because we thought all you Facebook stalkers would get sick of the same thing over and over.  But the pictures don’t do the scenery justice.  Everything was just too beautiful to capture on camera properly. The hike took around two hours, but since it was so gorgeous, we didn’t mind.  We stopped at a few photo ops and cliffs to take pictures and breath for a little.  Near the end of the hike, there was a guy selling lemonade and wine.  He owns his own vineyard and lemon trees, so he makes all of his own wine.  Caity and I got some lemonade.  He cut the lemon in half, squeezed the juice out of it, added some water and sugar, mixed it up and handed it to us! It was made right in front of us! And it was better than Simply Lemonade. Yum yum yum. 

Paradise

Vernazza!

Flood damage

Reppin AO

:)

More waterfalls!

YUMM

At the end of the hike we saw some construction and we figured it was damage from the floods, but it looked a pool was being built!  We took a look, and then we noticed that the building next to it looked a lot like our hotel!  So we walked (despite all the sings that said STOP) toward where we though our hotel was and lo and behold, there it was!  We couldn’t have picked a better location for the hotel! We went to the room, posted photos and just relaxed for about an hour.  Once we were ready we left the hotel around 8 p.m. to grab some dinner.  We walked around to find an ATM for a little bit.  We walked inwards toward the back of the city and we saw that none of it had been fixed from the floods.  The only places that looked complete were the beachfront ones also, although it was much better off than Vernazza.  After all, we walked around Monterosso in the morning and didn’t even notice.  We finally found a place to grab food and Caity got pizza and I got homemade ravioli stuffed with cheese and homemade pesto for the sauce.  It was SO GOOD.  The best ravioli I’ve ever had, hands down.  We wanted some dessert afterwards so of course, we got gelato.  Cone number three of gelato for the day…check!  This was the best gelato we had yet.  It was chocolately and creamy and just plain delicious.  We got back to the hotel, Skyped with mom and dad and went to bed.  We were dead tired form the hike.

Mmmm pesto sauce.

The next day we got up, took a little pictures, had 2 gelatos and hit the train to Roma!!  Caity and I are in love with Italy!!  Everyone reading this, GO TO ITALY.  Cinque Terre was the prettiest place I've ever been to and I would go back in a heartbeat!

Anyways, hope you enjoyed reading about my little slice of paradise!  I've got more stories to come in future blog posts.  Keep an eye out! ;)

xx.