Rio who? Cinque Terre: May 7 and 8

We got up early to catch one of the first trains from Marseille to Nice. No problems there - it only took a couple hours. Then, we had to transfer for a train to the border of Italy: Ventimiglia. That also wasn't so bad... maybe an hour and a half. Great. Then, we had to take the regional train to Cinque Terre.... for 5 hours. I think I'll be content to avoid mass amounts of public transportation for a while after this trip. So anyway, we arrived in Riomaggiore around 5pm, checked into our hostel, and went off in search of dinner since we hadn't eaten all day on the train. We found a cute little restaurant and got some gnocchi with traditional Ligurian pesto. It was DELICIOUS! :)

We spent a couple hours just exploring the city after that.. hiked up a random trail and found some waterfalls, turned down an alleyway to find an old church and apothecary, and came across little old ladies hanging their laundry out to dry in the sea breeze on our way back. Even though we were in an 11 bed room on our trip, we turned in early because we hadn't slept much and knew we would need energy for the next day.

Intermission to the dreams: some of the roommates come in at 3am, loud as ever, after drinking wine on the beach all night. They talked about nothing in particular for a good hour or so before finally passing out. On the bright side, they pointed out the fireflies in our room. That was the first time I'd ever seen them. :)

In the morning, Megan and I woke up pretty early to hike the trails. We started in Riomaggiore and quickly made it along to Manarola where we bought a little bit of Focaccia for breakfast while we started the hike on to Corniglia (including the 380 stairs up to the city). We explored each city a little bit along the way. I had stayed in Corniglia last time I was here, so I knew of a good deli where we bought some salami, bread, and fruit to have a picnic lunch along the way. The hike from Corniglia to Vernazza is my favorite with gorgeous views of the cliffs, plants, and crashing waves. We stopped in a little secluded place to put on more sunscreen ( didn't want to take any chances after Marseille) and eat our lunch. Then, it was onto the beasty hike to Monterosso. There were SO many stairs on this trail... at least a few hundred up and down the side of the mountains. After 12km, and going up and down about 600 feet from sea level at least 4 or 5 times, we made it to the beach in the last city. We drank some water, ditched our stuff on the beach and hopped into the Mediterannean! It was so cold at first, but felt amazing after our long hike.

We finally headed back to Rio to shower, grab some pesto pizza for dinner, and just hang out with some of the roommates for a few hours before going to bed. In the morning, we'd have to get up early again to catch a train back to France.