Le Cinque Terre

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April 26th 2008

Published: May 2nd 2008

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LDUCA

Venezia!

the all famous big bridge with a beautiful view

So this past weekend I went to the Cinque Terre with my friend Adriana, aka Manhattan, one of the people that I met on my trip to Italy last summer. She is now studying in Paris, and we have never even seen each other in the US... but we love to travel Italy together. So we met up at Venice because she had never seen it before, and it is so close to me. We did the main sights, and she was going picture crazy. Then we hopped on the night journey across Italy... train after train, station after station, we finally arrived at Santa Margherita, a small lil' ocean town with an amazing beach. We were so exhausted that we passed out on the beach for a while, then after walking around the town, we enjoyed a quick lunch and a drink before heading off to the next town, Portofino. We hopped on this bus, which at first there was maybe a handful of people. At the next stop, an entire tour of much older Italians from the Veneto region hopped on the bus. They had to have been drinking, because they were all extremely happy, and laughing, the entire

Venezia

bus ride, even though we were all smooshed in like sardines. We arrived in Portofino, but we didn't end up doing much there, even though it was a pretty happening town. It was pretty much a port with a bunch of yachts just waiting to be boarded, with tons of restaurants surrounding this port. Adriana and I figured when we return, we better return on a yacht. We took the ferry back to Santa Margherita to catch the train to where our hotel was within the Cinque Terre, 5 small towns that rest on the cliffs of the Ligurian coast, which is actually a national park, with trails that you walk between these 5 villages... however, this train, at the first stop was flooded with people to where there wasn't even space to breathe. Reason: April 25 is the Festa della liberazione and everyone in Italy is out and about. We finally made it to our stop, even though every stop of the 5 cities was mayhem. We attempted to get off the train, which is a story that I just have to tell in person. but, we made it. We got to our hotel, and we both took showers

Venezia

because at that point we were sick of the trains. We went out to watch the sunset, then to eat, and called it an early night. The next morning, we woke up and started the trek, which once again was a flood of people, but once we got started it began to thin out. We walked between 4 of the 5 cities, stopping along the way to catch some snacks like granita or focaccia. and on the last stretch we decided to take the train to the next city so that we would have time to bake on the beach. After baking, we got an aperitivo and caught the ferry all the way back to our city. When we got back to our city, we had another aperitivo at a different bar so that we could see the sunset. We found a nice restaurant and dug in... even though the wait was a good hour or so! I had a mixed seafood and pasta plate... absolutely delicious. From there, we went back home, because I had to wake up early to get a good start back to Ferrara as I had to turn in all my final papers this week...