Location: Cinque Terre
Today, we got up at 5:45 to get to Cinque Terre and enjoy a great hike. After the normal grumblings of an early morning wake-up, we jumped in the dinghies to shore before catching the bus to the train station. When we arrived at the train station, we ate breakfast fresh from the bakeries around the town. Cinque Terre is a group of five villages that are built on or into the cliff sides of the coastline, all connected by a hiking trail, which is exhausting but breathtaking. The first of the villages we stopped at was Monterosso. From here, we hiked to the rest of the towns. But before we left, we decided that we would try to get a gelato at each town we stopped in, which, unfortunately, was far too much sugar for us. On the hiking path, we met many people from the United States, Canada, and Australia, which caused the joke to start that we had somehow ended up back in the States. In the second town, we did different things. Some went to the beach, others took the train to the next town, and others decided that after the hike, it was time for lunch. Those of us who chose to eat lunch got take-away pizza and went onto a rooftop patio, which gave us an amazing view of the town cliffs and the sea. After this, we continued on our hike, which was full of gelato and pizza. This slowed us down to the point where we fell asleep on the trail and took an extended siesta. The siesta ruined the rest of the day because we then had to rush the rest of the trails to get to the meeting place in front of the train station on time. Overall, it was a good but exhausting day.