Ligurian pesto and five quaint seaside towns

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The Cinque Terre. "Five Lands." Absolutely beautiful.

Our hostel is in Levanto, which is the next town west of the Cinque Terre, five seaside villages. We got up early, had some breakfast, and took an early train over to Riomaggiore, the easternmost city. This is where the trail that connects all five towns begins...
We hiked around, found some beautiful panoramas, (Adi bought some fresh foccaccia with olives), then began on the "Via Dell'Amore," the easy path that connects the first two villages. Fifteen minutes (and a bunch of cliffside views) later, we arrived in Manarola for some more seaside fun. It was about noonish, so we decided to have some lunch at a seaside restaurant. It was a bit on the expensive side, but it was definitely worth it: great pasta, great pesto, great sauces, great vino, great view, great everything! Except.. it took us 15 minutes to get our check. Oh well.

We hiked to our next city, Corniglia, town number 3. Instead of hiking the 377 steps to the town itself, we took a path through a long tunnel and down a hill to a secluded beach area with locals. It was kinda rocky, kinda hot, but the water felt nice, and there wasn't a large annoying touristy presence. The beach, called Guvano, is known for it's... well, naturists, as they like to be called. I guess that's part of the culture.

We hiked up through 10 minutes of bush and 20 or 30 more of trail to the next village, Vernazza, which was a preeetty little town. There was a little castle thing at the edge of a strip of land, and a bunch of people were chillin by the beach. A bunch of people. A bunch. We walked around a bit then headed off to the final village, Monterrosso al Mare.

Monterrosso is the most touristy of the 5, but it had long, beatiful beaches. We got in as the sun was low in the sky, but the water was still bright blue, and four of us decided to go for a swim. The water was nice (though salty! Quite a change from the lakes of Verbania). After a while, we got out, dried up, and walked around to the Old Town portion of the village. Here, the boys and the girls took separate routes: the girls shopped around a bit then headed back to the hostel to shower off the sweat and salt. The boys stayed and shopped around a bit, then walked the whole village. There was a statue of a large giant carved into the cliff face that was kinda exciting. We went to a small restaurant for some dinner: gnocchi that wasn't very good. Oh well. We also tried some of the local specialties, which were okay. After a couple hours of talking and walking and people watching, we took a train back to Levanto, our home base. Showers all around and sleep--the next morning, we're to wake up early!

Off to Firenze!

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Comments

[Greece Trip]

15 minutes!
Ha, you guys probably realized that's pretty fast in Italy...