Cinque Terre

Ah, finally had my weekend in Cinque Terre after a disappointing attempt in October. My friend Jescy from Montana accompanied me to the Liguria region for a few nights of camping and a day of hiking under the beautiful Italian Riviera sun. It was magnificent. The little villages were a lot of fun, if not a bit over touristed (but what can you expect?). At each village we looked around and even bought some gifts for our friends and families (and ourselves!) back home. The hike was challenging because we kept up a fast pace to have some distance between ourselves and the Palm Sunday visitors and we took hundreds of amazing photos.

We had great weather and even a few fun surprises like happening upon a massive number of surfers in Levanto where we camped. We really enjoyed watching them catch waves at sunset and envied their chance to surf moderately sized waves in Italy. After my limited but fun surfing experience in Costa Rica I think I would really enjoy trying this beach. One more thing to add to my "possible things to do before I die" list!

The only down sides were things like having some trouble putting up the 30 year old tent we borrowed from a teacher I work with and being really cold at night because we were ill-equipped for proper camping (this is due to my living out of suitcases, not lack of knowledge of proper gear).

On Monday morning we woke up at 6:00 because it had rained overnight and we were therefore sleeping in small pools of cold water as a result of tent osmosis. Fun! We spent the morning drying our clothes in the laundry room, packing our smelly stuff and taking an earlier train back to France and the comfort of my apartment. As per usual, my visit to Italy was filled with beautiful sights and yummy food, but not so much with the friendly people or lack of frustration. My lack of Italian was problematic at times and my French was useless. On our way back to France on Monday we found the civil servants to be easily distracted and useless and those those working in tourism made no attempts to communicate with us at all. However, I have become accustomed to these mixed emotions when traveling in Italy and have now twice experienced an intense sense of relief after crossing the French border after.

The Cinque Terre itself is lovely and definitely worth a visit, though I would encourage people to go during the week to avoid crowds, anticipate some gruff service, and splurge on a bed and breakfast to avoid waking up to a cold puddle :-)