Old Testament Experiences

Wow, what a day.  Cinque Terre is amazing.  We woke up in Florence yesterday and walked through those charming streets one more time on our way up to the train station.  The train to La Spezia was nice but nothing special.  My favorite trains so far have been the German trains.  We arrived in La Spezia and we were starving.  We found this place owned by a Pakistani guy that sold Doner Kebab sandwiches and it was totally bomb.  He loaded each one up with so much meat!  It was truly grande.  

We moseyed trough La Spezia down to the sea to catch a ferry to Cinque Terre.  We helped some Canadian people on the way and they gave us some brewskys. . . . .not!  But we did help them.  Unfortunately the ferries to Cinque Terre were not running because the seas were "too rough".  So we walked back through the town up to the train station and caught a train to Riomaggiore, the first Cinque Terre city. 

Okay, you really have no idea how awesome these little coastal towns are.  They are beyond picturesque.  They are so incredible, that they have made Cinque Terre an official national park.  Dead serious.  So we walked around Riomaggiore for a bit and then we started to hike toward the next Cinque Terre city, Manarola. 

Let me tell you how these hikes work: The five Cinque Terre cities are connected by a large paved path that goes right along the shore.  This is the path that most everybody takes because it’s the most direct, the least strenuous, and the most popular.  We took this route from Riomaggiore to Manarola, called the “via dell’ amore”.  But this shore line tourist path was closed from Manarola onwards, so we had to take the mountain trails.  These trails are 10 times cooler.  They aren’t paved and they often go through people’s vineyards and gardens.  It’s radical.  We took one of these routes to Corniglia.  It was one of the coolest trails I’ve ever done.  It seemed like we were in New Testament times, hiking through the mount of olives, or going to the sermon on the mount.  There was even this little stone structure that looked like it could’ve been the place where they laid Jesus in the tomb.  Plus, we got to go through this tiny village at the top of the hill called Volastra, and there were countless vistas overlooking the Cinque Terre that were too beautiful to even try to describe.  So we took this round-about mountain path to Corniglia but it was well worth it.  Seriously it is one of the best hikes I’ve ever done. 

Manarola.

Steep mountain paths.

Garden tomb?  There were olive trees AND fig trees all around the path.

Vineyards.

Okay, before hiking from Manorola to Corniglia, we wanted to swim.  Unfortunately, we all forgot our swimming suits, so we dropped 52 euros on swimming suits and goggles.  We changed into our trunks and then headed down to the rocky cove at the seaside edge of Manorola.  It was pretty cold, but it was so worth it.  There was this big rock that you could climb up on and I went to go check the depth next to it because I wanted to cliff jump.  It was plenty deep so I climbed up this rocky mass and jumped off.  It was SOO AWESOME!!!  It was probably a good twenty feet maybe 25.  Anyway, we all did it and got some sweet pics too.  Other tourists were watching us, and we got some applause and I even heard a ‘bravo’. 

 

After swimming we were faced with a dilemma; we wanted to change into dry clothes for the hike, but we didn’t know where we could change.  Wayne decided just to strip down and change right there on the rocks.  So he did.  After all, as he said, it’s Europe right?  So a few people in Manarola saw a full-moon on the shore yesterday.  Classic.  Annie had the guts to do it too, with the help of Wayne providing some privacy with a towel.  I was the chicken, so I hiked in my swimming suit. 

We got in to Corniglia around 9:00ish PM and checked into our hostel.  Then Wayne and I went to search for food while Annie showered.  We found this excellent restaurant called La Posada and sat down, planning to just get take out.  When we tried to explain this to the man who seated us, we had some problems.  First of all, he spoke very little English or Spanish, so communicating that we wanted to take the food to our sister in the hostel was a challenge.  Finally he understood, and he was very adverse to our proposal.  It was preposterous to him for us to not eat in the restaurant.  So Wayne and I decided to just eat there and just save food for Annie to take back after we finished. 

The meal was AMAZING.  It was legit---super good spaghetti with pesto sauce and incredibly fresh, delicious sea food.  We set aside portions of everything to take back to Annie.  When we tried to explain to the man that we needed a box or something to take back the food to our sister, he rolled his eyes, but consented.  He was actually a really sweet guy.  He came back out with nice ceramic dishes---they had no boxes for take out.  That’s how authentic this place was.  He was so nice, he let us take his own dishes and asked us to bring them back tomorrow morning. 

Thus ends the 18^th day of the Europe trip of Wayne, Nate, and Annie.     

-N.