Shay's Italia Adventures: Cinque Terre: Don't sing and hike at the same time.

Happy Easter everyone!! So we spent our Easter Break just relaxing and took a day trip to Cinque Terre. (We were supposed to head to Lake Como as well, but the train schedule was not cooperating, so please stay tuned for that trip.) Cinque Terre is made up of five little towns on the Italian Riviera and you start at one and hike through all five. In total, the hike is about 7 miles. I went with Jessica, Clint, Sartaj, and Kurt and we had amazing weather! It was perfect to hike in, as it was about 72 degrees!

We first arrived in the last town called Riomaggiore after taking a 4 hour train which left at 5:20 am....SO EARLY. We did our best to sleep on the train and finally made it. It is literally one of the most gorgeous places I have ever seen. The hike from town to town is so beautiful and right on the water. Some lengths were tougher than the others. The first hike was only about 20 minutes. We arrived in the second town Manarola and stopped for a bottle of wine. It was only 9 euro and was one of the best wines I have ever tasted. It was from Manarola and came from the grapes that were growing right behind the restaurant we stopped at! We tried to start the hike to Corniglia however due to landslides, the trail was closed. We were forced to take the train instead of the 45 minute hike but eventually got there. We wandered through the little town and eventually continued hiking.

The fourth town was called Vernazza and was also super beautiful. The hike was pretty intense as we had to go up and down stairs the whole time. It took us about 90 minutes to get there, but we stopped and sat on some rocks near the water to eat our lunches we had packed. I can't really explain in words how amazing it was but please check out the pics below and I will do my best to keep the five towns separate!

After walking around and refueling, we headed for the last town Montarosso. This was the most intense part of the hike and took us about an hour and forty minutes. Montarosso is the best place to end as they have tons of restaurants and beaches. Along this somewhat sketchy hike, Clint was leading the way. It was pretty intense at the part we were at so we decided to continuously sing to get our out of shape asses over this mountain. We just started singing Grease when all of the sudden Clint disappears. The ground gave out and he definitely fell off a mini cliff! I screamed, Jess and Kurt grabbed cameras, and Sartaj was working on ways to get him up. He didn't fall that far as he clung onto shrubs and branches, but they took a toll on his body. His arms, legs, and hands were severely cut up and we still were only half way to Monterosso. Kurt pulled him up and we splashed what little water we had to help clean his cuts. It was slightly terrifying but we were able to laugh about it later. We watched our step from then on out and eventually made it to Monterosso.

It was about 5:30 pm at this point and we went to go get Clint cleaned up. After that we decided we wanted to eat an amazing dinner so found a great seafood spot. The Cinque Terre is where pesto is originally from, so I decided to have pesto gnocchi which was FABULOUS. Everyone else had some sort of seafood pasta and it was amazing! We shared another bottle of vino straight from Monterosso and eventually caught a train around 7:30pm. It was such an amazing day....Practically perfect, minus the Clint fall. I highly recommend visiting the Cinque Terre if you ever get the chance, even if it is just for a day. We made it back to Torino around 1am and had such a blast. It was fun to get out there and do something somewhat physical haha. We are still trying to fit in Lake Como this week before I leave to meet my Grandma and Aunt Liz in Nice, France on Saturday. School is winding down and finals are approaching...yikes! Hope everyone is well and had an amazing and blessed Easter. Love you guys :)