Italy - Cinque Terre

I wrote this around 2 weeks ago. Sorry it's taken so long to post it I've been busy getting my life together in London. It's certainly within my grasp it just takes timmeeee.

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 I read a quote on the internet recently, "Alone you go fast, with friends you go far" - I'm not entirely sold on that but I get it. Sharing experiences with friends is one of the best thing anyone can do and indeed it's something I've been doing a lot of during this trip ... but I do see the importance of alone time, too.

I start off with that quote as the time I spent in Cinque Terre was time spent with two friends I met in Bologna - Harry and Arielle. Actually I found out about their CT plans there and just kind of latched onto them. I felt exploring something so beautiful as Cinque Terre would best be done with some friends, friends who knew what they were doing, and in the end it would be nice to have some company through all the hiking.

(These pensive looking people to be precise)

Oh the hiking. Oh the hiking. My legs and joints right now on the train to Milano have been put through quite a lot these last two days! The walks between the cities is usually around 1.5/2 hours each but due to the flooding that occurred two years ago a lot of the coastal routes are cut off which necessitates one to go on the 'mountain' routes which ... which just take longer! When asking locals when the walking routes are they always (every single one) would tut and tell us to just take the train. Not why we came to CT guyssss.

Out of the cinque cities we stayed at number Quattro - Vernazza. We had a really nice self contained 3 bedroom room just off the main street. Not that there is really anything else in Vernazza aside from the main street. We had a problem of needing things after 9pm which does not go well for the people here. Everything shuts then that's just kind of it. Very peaceful though and during the day it's really, really beautiful. I want to say the MOST beautiful of the terres. Controversy.

(VerrrrrNAZZA)

Day one we decided to go to the next and final town in the series of five. The hike took about 2 hours of quite dynamic hiking. DYNAMIC hiking. thin ledges, rocky areas, plants and whatever. Harry and Arielle are good with taking photos so I've actually got a fair few that I'm actually in. Woo. Harry also has a penchant for gelati and must have had it about seven times in the two days. I had it twice, bringing my total gelati count in Italy to 3. I don't have that much of a sweet tooth so...

The second day started off rainy so I just read my book in bed while the other two slept in (my genre cycle has gone from sci-fi to romance  this time. Real eye rolling stuff). Fortunately by the time we got around to doing some hikin' the weather opened up and we had some awesome views to gaze upon. Arielle and Harry were keen to go to the beach so when we saw a shabby, handwritten sign saying "Beach - 20 minutes" we just went for it.

(Because why not)

So I don't know how long the journey took but it was treacherous. That path was the most bizarre and dangerous route I think I've ever been on. After we spent some time on the stony beach (which was secluded and lovely) we decided to take a different path back up. Turns out we were in this bizarre, closed off bay area. One abandoned house with a path up the mountain that went nowhere, lead to an abandoned outside cooking area 5 minutes away and that was it. There were tyre tracks in the mud but no car around. Next to the cooking area was this ominous and outright scary black cave with no visible end. Arielle said she saw people sleeping behind a piece of wood leaning on the wall. We started walking into the cave but if it was a horror movie you'd be screaming at us to leave. So that is exactly what we did.

When we tried to find the way back to our original treacherous path we must have chosen the wrong way because all of a sudden Harry stiffened and then quickly told us to leave - turns out he had seen four people sleeping there in the thick bushes. I dunno. The whole situation freaked me out a little. Why were all these people sleeping and why were they all doing it in such out of the way locations? Were they even 'sleeping'?! We eventually found our way back up the original treacherous path, back to civilisation, and back on our way. We gave the beach trek a thumbs down but the beach itself was pretty cool. I'm now covered in more scrapes and bruises than I need right now.

(nuh)

The best part of the Cinque Terre is seeing the cities from a distance. I'm sure you've all seen photos but there's just no way a camera can capture how the blue ocean sparkles next to the vibrantly coloured towns. Being exhausted and then seeing the next beautiful city in the distance is simply incredible. At the final town we hiked up to a monastery up on the mountain and had a breathtaking view of all 5 cities as the sun was setting. As I said, it's just one of those things that you need people to share it with.

(It's beautiful when it goes down ... but the sun is pretty important for light giving purposes)

After that of course we had to trudge to the next city in near darkness. Worth it though. Definitely. It also concluded all 5 of the cities. We were concerned we'd have to miss one but as it turned out we COULD tick all the boxes. We ended the final night with some delicious sea food and a bottle of red wine made locally. All in all it was a fantastic two days.