Cinqueterre

So how about some more beautiful beaches? I'm really ok with that! Me and 5 other friends went to Cinqueterre for the weekend and had an amazing time! We rented this little apartment for a few days and went on a hike, ate nice dinners, swam in the ocean - you know. No big deal :D So our apartment was the top floor of that full yellow building you see on the left side. It was beautiful.

And then here's the view out of the window. It was so incredibly beautiful. And one of the best parts was falling asleep with the windows open, hearing the water crashing on the shore. It made me think of home. So the town that we stayed in was called "Riomaggiore" - the first of the 5 towns that make up Cinqueterre (meaning "Five Lands"). It's also the smallest of the 5 towns - but we loved it! It was perfect.

So we got there on a Friday evening, spent some time in Riomaggiore, and then went into "Vernazza" (4th of 5th town). We took the train that goes between the towns and spent a little time in looking around before dinner. I found this sweatshirt in one of the shops there and kinda fell in love with it. It's super cute, I'm sure you can't tell how cute it is in this picture. But it has this really cute striped collar and a embroidered knot on the front that says "Cinqueterre Italia" - totally touristy, but I didn't really care because I loved it. So here's me on the beach in Vernazza posing my new sweater.

Then on Saturday we went on the hike that goes through all of the towns. It's a pretty challenging hike at some spots, but it was so so worth it. We all loved the hike, it was beautiful. The coolest thing was seeing all the old people on this hike. I have such respect for the elderly in Italy - they really amaze me daily. But anyways, there was this scooter in one of the towns that looked like it had been there for years, honestly. There were vines growing up in the tires. So we all took pictures on it. You could tell it was a tourist thing though because it was very strategically placed in order to have a beautiful view. Good work.

And then here's just a picture of my friend Allison and I. Mainly I just put it on because I like the picture and it's fun. Oh yeah, so then after the 5 1/2 hour hike (which was truly amazing) we were all sweaty and gross. So we ended up at the beach, put our stuff on the shore, and seriously ran into the ocean. It felt so so nice to be in that cool water after a long day of hiking. It was such a good day. The trip was really incredible, I'm really glad we got to go.