Day 7

(6-6-2013)

Cinque Terre

Hello again family!

 We woke up this morning to the sound of birds chirping and sheep baying outside our window. After getting dressed for the day, we went downstairs to a little dining room where breakfast had been prepared for the guests. It was a bit of a lighter fare than what we're used to (as is the Italian way), but it was enough to last a little bit.

It was an incredibly beautiful day - the perfect day for town hopping and beach walking. We first headed to the town of Riomaggiore, the southernmost of the Cinque Terre towns. It was tiny and didn't have much beach access, so it wasn't as great as we had thought it would be. The town is mostly known for water sports, but we weren't planning to do any of that so it didn't hold much interest for us. We grabbed some cappuccinos (of course) and then headed off to Corniglia.

Corniglia is the middle Cinque Terre town and is perched high on a hill. You can either wall up 365 steps to get the top (one for every day of the year) or take a bus. Given our fatigue after yesterday's crazy hike, we chose the bus. We had done some research about the beaches in Cinque Terre and we knew that there was a great beach in between the towns of Corniglia and Vernazza that you could walk to from Corniglia. So, we went to a little shop in town and bought bread, pesto, tomatoes, mozzarella, and spicy salami (for Will of course) to take for a picnic when we got to the beach.

Walking the trail was absolutely beautiful. As I said, Corniglia is on top of a big hill and all along the side of the mountain are vineyards and olive orchards. Walking through it was absolutely breathtaking. After about half an hour, we found a little sign indicating the path towards the beach. We stood at the top of this path and nervously looked down, for it looked RIDICULOUSLY steep. But, we had decided to have a picnic on this beach, so off we went. The sign had said that the beach was 20 min away, but that was an absolute lie. It was at least an hour of the most perilous hiking I have ever experienced. And to paint a beautiful picture for you, you should know that I was wearing a white dress and very simple running shoes - not at all the proper attire for this hike. We literally skidded down steep stretches of "trail," climbed through briar patches, and crawled through bamboo tunnels. I was practically in tears, fearing that we would tumble down the side of the cliff. Yet FINALLY, after the most frightening "walk" I have ever been on, we arrived at an absolutely stunning beach. It was a bit rocky, but it was so secluded and it was perched between two incredibly high mountains. We laid out our towel (we brought the one Lady Gaga gave me because it's thin - thank you Kiki!) and set up our wonderful lunch. And while the food here is naturally amazing, after everything we had just experienced, let me tell you that this was the best food I had ever had.

We spent probably three hours at the beach just relaxing in the sun. Yet we kept looking around and thinking that since there weren other people on the beach, there MUST be an easier way to get to the beach. So when we wanted to leave, we asked an Italian man how to get back to Corniglia. He was leaving too and said that he would show us how to get back. At first we were walking through beautiful trees overlooking the water and then, almost suddenly, we were walking through an abandoned train tunnel. For about one kilometer, we walked in complete darkness trying to see by the light of our phones. Our new Italian friend kept saying that this was like the movies. What he meant was that this was like a horror film where somebody or something could jump out at any moment. After I realized what he meant, the ride took on a whole new meaning. It only took about twenty to thirty minutes to walk back from the beach and the whole walk was completely horizontal. If only someone had shown us the way before we climbed down the mountainside.

When we finally made it back to the train station, we took a train to Manerola, the only town we had left to visit. We walked around for a bit, but we were completely exhausted. So we came back to the farm to get some sleep and get ready for Lake Como!!

Love you all!
Elizabeth and Will