This was our first “free day” that we had on our trip so
far. Dr. Erdogmus had a trail that was along the western coast of Italy from
Riomaggiore to Manarola to Corniglia to Vernazza to Monterosso al Mare. The
trail went through the Parco Nazionale delle Cinque Terre, which is the
basically the five terrains national park. There are five cities that you go
through on this trail, so that is where they get “cinque,” which is five in
Italian. She asked if any of us wanted to go along because it is always fun to
do these things in groups and she had never done it before and was determined
to do it this year. We all met up downstairs early that morning because it was
about a 2.5 hour train ride just to get to the trail. Getting up early and what
people thought the cost of the train tickets would be, were the only reason
that I even considered not going, but it was well worth all that I spent and
not getting to sleep in a little. The train tickets were considerably cheaper than
what someone had said they would be and it was phenomenally beautiful! A group
of nine of us, Dr. Erdogmus, Ariel, Kate, Erik, Adam, Nate, Sean, Aaron and I,
all took the train to the location where could buy our passes for the hike and
train through Cinque Terre.
At this time, the weather was a little suspect because
it very overcast, and there forecast of rain. We then got our tickets and rode
the train to get to the first part of the trail from Riomaggiore to Manarola.
This was probably one of the most beautiful parts of the hike and it was the
easiest that is made for tourist to just have a nice walk right along the edge
of the mountains on the cost. We stopped here to get some lunch at a little café
there and the sandwich that I had there was extremely tasty. It had started
raining by this point, so that was a little disappointing, but we were
determined to still have a great time. Then we took the path which was paved,
and extremely easy, so Kate, Nate, Sean, and I decided to branch off onto the
little paths that were made along it. One went up a ways, so we got some good
pictures from up higher, and then the other one went down so that we were able
to climb down onto the rocks right by the Ligurian Sea. We had fun climbing on
the rocks and getting pictures from there. I went down close enough so that I could
put my hands in the water even though it was still raining.
After we had taken
more than an hour on the part that was only supposed to take 20 minutes, we
went through the rest until we arrived at the next town. The weather was
finally starting to look a little better; the rain had finally stopped but it
was still overcast.
Here we would have to ride a ferry since this part of the
path was closed for some obvious reasons when we saw it from aboard the ferry.
Before we left, we went climbing around on some more of the rocks that we could
reach from the edge of the land. Then I needed to go to the bathroom, but could
not find one that was public quickly before we needed to take the ferry, so I
saw a store with one for customers only. It was the perfect reason to buy some gelato,
so I bought a small cone of it and used the restroom, and hurried to go buy my
ticket and catch up to our group waiting for the ferry. This was a really fun
and relaxing experience.
We were on the ferry for 15 minutes, but it seemed
like almost no time had passed. It was extremely calming and relaxing compared to
the rest of the trip. We were just able to sit back and feel the rocking of the
boat and waves of the sea. About halfway through the boat ride, the sun had
finally peaked out through the clouds!
Then we got to the next town, Vernazza, and began what was
supposed to be the most difficult part of the hike. We are all used to walking
a ton and hiking around from our first 10 days of the trip, so we didn’t have
too much trouble with it, even with our heavy, tired legs. It was pretty steep
and long, but it was absolutely gorgeous!
We were fortunate, though, that we
didn’t start on the side we finished on, because it was extremely steep for
very first part. For us it was extremely steep at the very end on our way down.
Once we had finally finished on the trail, we made it to Monterosso al Mare,
where there were a few nice beaches. We headed to find a restaurant and had a
very good meal, sitting right above the beach with the waves crashing against
the beach. It was extremely relaxing to have a day like this where we were
hurrying to get from one place to another and trying to make sure we saw
everything we wanted to see.
Then we headed down to the beach for a few minutes and I
stuck my feet into the cool water. It felt absolutely amazing since they are a
little sore from all the walking we have been doing. Then we caught the train
back to the main train station and had some fun taking pictures on the train
ride and at the train station. We almost lost Nate and Sean a few times, and we
were not sure if they made it on the second train. But sure enough they did and
then we finally pulled back into hotel by 12:30 that night.
It was an amazing, beautiful
hike and a day well spent!
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