A weekend in Cinque Terre!

I had another fabulous weekend of traveling. This past weekend as many of you know I went with the Gonzaga group to Cinque Terre, which means five regions. This place is so beautiful! We had another great weekend of weather, and me and seven other girls were lucky in that we snagged the only 8 person apartment and the rest of the group stayed at a hotel about fifteen minutes walking distance from us. Our apartment overlooked the water and we had a balcony that we could sit and watch the ocean. It was gorgeous! Even though the apartment was less than par, the view made up for it. It was funny though because the guy only gave us three towels for 8 of us, and we had no toilet paper. We ended up snagging some from the hotel where everyone else was staying. Oh well…

The first night we got there we were pretty tired after having school and then traveling, so we ended up just finding a small little Italian restaurant and chatting for a couple hours. I found out that Pesto (which is basil, pine nuts, garlic, and olive oil) originated in Cinque Terre so I was stoked. Pesto is one if not my favorite Italian food, so I went crazy with the pesto this weekend. The first night I had gnocchi al pesto which was so yummy! It was very rich, but really good.

The first full day in Cinque Terre was consumed by a massive, intense five hour hike that toured all of the five regions. Apparently it is pretty impressive to walk through all five towns in one day so props to us! At first we started off with the big group and the tour guide, but me and my friends Emma and Courtney were a little bored with the speech (not to mention we could barely hear what he was saying) and the pace was as I like to say “glacial”, so we decided to venture off and do the hike at our own speed. This ended up being a great decision, because apparently they took a loonngg leisurely time and they stopped frequently commenting on this rock and that tree, and blah blah. I much rather just take my own pictures and walk steadily. I took some pretty cool pictures which are all on facebook as usual. Free free to check them out! This hike was probably the most gorgeous I have ever been on. It was very challenging though; there were TONS of stairs and 75% of the hike was just straight uphill. It was definitely a work out, but totally worth it in the end. Half-way through we stopped at one of the little towns and had a nice lunch. Among the three of us we split some water, bread, pasta with Bolognese sauce, and of course a pesto pasta dish! After that we had some gelato and got a water bottle and we were on our way for the second half of the hike. Apparently a lot of my fellow peers decided to take the train back after stopping for lunch and being totally exhausted. I am glad we stuck it through even though it was hell for half of it!

Later that afternoon we were all pretty sweaty and exhausted from the hike so we all took cold showers (unintentionally because there was no hot water in our apartment the whole weekend) and then we met up for a big group dinner. It was nice eating with the whole GU group; although being such a large group we were all pretty loud! The menu consisted of bread, white wine, pesto pasta of course, and swordfish. I loved it all except for those that know me, you know I hate seafood. But hey, at least I tried it! It wasn’t bad as far as seafood is concerned—it didn’t taste fishy but it definitely was not something I would order for myself on a regular basis. I ended up getting some vegetarian option that looked green and quiche like. It was alright, but I was just fine filling up on the pesto pasta. After dinner we all went to a local bar and socialized for a few hours.

On Saturday we were all pretty sore from the hike so most of us just chill axed at the beach all day. In the morning me and some of my friends were really craving an “American” Breakfast… ya know, the works: sausage, bacon, eggs, pancakes, French toast, you get the idea. Well, we were happy when we saw a sign that said AMERICAN BREAKFAST HERE! We were soon disappointed though because all they really had was eggs and bacon (which was incorporated IN the actual eggs). We were really craving some hardcore pancakes and syrup but I guess they just really don’t understand what an “all American breakfast” is. The food wasn’t bad—just not what we wanted. After Breakfast we went to the beach by our apartment and then we ran into some other students that let us know of an even cooler beach that was just one train stop away. We decided to go with them and they were definitely right… this beach had crystal clear water and the sand was actually sandy! (At most of the beaches the “sand” has really been just small rocks). A lot of our group had the same idea, as many Gonzaga students were already there by the time we got there. We were there several hours, and me and my friend Jen went into the water and got attacked by the huge waves. It was really fun body surfing and getting dunked into the water!

That night me and some girl friends had dinner at another little Italian restaurant and I had a pesto pizza. It was so good! And after we went to a local festival a couple train stops over. It was pretty fun- there was an open air market and a place that was serving free doughnuts and vino (which is wine). Once it got dark, we walked over to the beach where there were lit candles on small boats all across the water. Around eleven thirty we sat down and got ready to watch a fireworks show. It was spectacular! It was right off the beach where we were, so we got a great view. I had never been so close to a fireworks show!

Today we left pretty early around 9:30 (on the earliest train available) and it stopped in Pisa and then from Pisa we transferred to a train that took us directly to Florence. The whole train experience lasted around 3 hours and then we had to schlep our entire luggage from the train station which was at least a mile and a half. My back really kills- I have quite the gargantuan backpack. I tend to over pack but now I learned the hard way that I need to learn to pack lighter. Anyways… the rest of today has been filled with unpacking, catching up the roomie, and doing loads of hw. Also tonight me and 4 other girlfriends got reservations at this amazing Mexican restaurant by the Duomo. I had a chicken burrito that was to die for and a cranberry mojito. We were all really craving Mexican food so this definitely hit the spot.

Well I best be going—this was quite the entry! I hope you guys didn’t get too bored reading it. I’ll post more later!

*note* the first picture above is taken from the hike that I went on Friday. Pretty huh? :

The second I took during the fireworks show on the beach.