Yes it's been almost a year and I still haven't finished my blog, but I wanted to finish it before I go to Korea and have to start an entire new thread of thought. I hope it's enjoyable. And now without further interruption I present to you, Cinque Terre
Today is another excursion day, and we’re going to the five cities, that we told everyone who recommended it to us that we were in fact not going. But this is a very happy change to our plans! I mean really it was well worth seeing. We started off our day by driving down to the train station that ran through the five cities. After some difficulties we were able to make it to the train terminal, and with even greater difficulty we were able to board the train traveling to the farthest city (it would have been much better if everyone listened to me, but alas I am too stupid to be heard). Oh, but fun fact before I move on, we had a pic-nic lunch in the train terminal of sandwiches which were bought this morning at our local grocery store. Train travel is amazing here. The tracks are parallel to the deep blue sea.
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| Ligurian Sea |
(why aren’t there more U.S. beaches as beautiful as this one?) After reaching the farthest city we got off and began to explore. Truly Truly i say to you there is not much to see in this city. The main pull is obviously the beach, which is incredible.
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| Beach |
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| Beach |
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| Beach |
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| Old Stuff and Water |
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| Living life on the Edge! |
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| Beach |
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| Rocks |
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| Ahhh water! |
Well that doesn’t do the city justice really. It’s a beautiful city, but the location of it is what makes it amazing. If it were anywhere else it wouldn’t be quite as nice. We explored the area for a while, breathing in the clean air, absorbing the scenery, and eating delicious gelato, which is good pretty much everywhere, but when it’s bad...it’s just really bad. Oh we got to play in a WWII bunker...which was gross and probably held a gypsy colony at one point.
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| Buncero di Sesso |
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| Add caption |
Well it was already like 3 and we still had 4 more cities to see so we had to move on! And so, we boarded the train and depart for the next city. Now this city was probably the most beautiful out of the 5. It had beautiful, colorful houses and a beautiful view and a really cool castle on top of a nearby hill where you could see everything. It really was more of like a lone tower but it was still really cool and the view was great!
Literally everything here worth seeing is up on top of some major hill or building with a bazillion(my computer did not correct the spelling of this word and so I am convinced that bazillion is a real word and number that will be my income someday) steps, crazy. We also got to see the harbor and a very nice old cathedral there as well. Well as you remember, at least i hope you do, there are five cities to see and we have only done two and at this point the sun was beginning its decent and we had to keep moving! Otherwise we would be exposed to the dangers of Italy at night, a truly horrific thought to my dear mother. So we rushed to the Third city, which is on top of 600 steps, and the bus driver was being a lazy bum and not doing his job and making all us poor tired tourists walk up the stupid city steps. Well the climb really wasn’t that bad, it was scenic! That’s a plus? We we get to the top and by this time most of us are in a bad tired mood and really disappointed because there was not much to see and the view was less than expected. So we decided to board the nearest overly crowded bus, which we left because I notices that we had not actually gone into the center of the town. It was much better in the center of town, more to see and do, but it came at a price. Had we left with the bus we could have boarded our train and left for the next city hunky dory, but instead because of my desire to see more city we missed the train, and we had to wait for an hour before we could board the next one. The waiting here was miserable. But we did meet a couple form Minnesota, who were friendly enough, we saw them again later. We finally, after a miserable hour of waiting for the train, we got on boarded and headed to the fourth city.
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| Cats |
We saw little of this city, it was quaint and had a nice sea view, but we were hungry! and our suggested restaurant was in the final city, so we decided to do an injustice to the fourth city and leave it early so we could fulfill our cravings.
We did not take the train to the fifth city though, we took the “Via de Amore” or “The way of Love” to the next city. It was less awkward than the name implies, but Jan was aware that he had to stay a full 20 feet away from me at all times on this road. the walk was definitely worth it! It was the unmatched beauty of the day, with the sun setting, and the waves crashing, ahh amazing! Well we finally left the lovely road and head on over to the suggested dining place for a very good meal, I was satisfied with it, others were not, but that’s what you get when you eat out, it extremely hit and miss in Italy.Well we made it home, i touched the train tracks, and now I’m enjoying the cold air. A very successful day i would say. -Ryan
