Weekend in Cinque Terre

This past weekend, including Friday, was the second of our 3-day weekends of my summer semester.  I along with my classmates, Aaron N., Aaron R., Trent, Kyle, Caleb, Nick, Travis, and Garret, all decided we would make a trek to the five cities known as Cinque Terre.  We gave the weekend a name, "The Bro Weekend".  A well-suited name if I do say so myself.

We left for the city of Riomaggiore at 9:46 am on Friday morning.  The train ride took a little over 5 hours to reach the final destination.  On the ride there, I shared a train cabin with a couple from Oregon.  Both of them talked my leg off the entire time.  I eventually had to ignore their conversation so I could catch a little shuteye.  They were interesting though.  Their daughter has an internship in Rome.

When we finally arrived in Riomaggiore, the first order of business was to find food.  We found a pizza place that was just down the street from our hostel.  It was called Il Bomber Pizza.  The pizza was huge and absolutely delicious.  We checked into our hostel, threw on our swim suits and headed for the beach.

We took yet another train to the city of Monterosso.  Monterosso is the furthest of all of the cities in Cinque Terre.  It is also the only city that has sand beaches.  On the train ride we caught glimpses of the ocean and its cliffs through small holes cut into the mountain, that's right, the majority of the train ride was through a mountain.  Everyone was like a kid in a candy shop looking out the windows!

In Monterosso, we jumped off the train and ran for the beach.  The beach was no too full and we snagged a couple of beach chairs.  The waves in the water were very powerful.  On my way into the water, a wave knocked me down and threw me around like a rag doll.  It was actually pretty fun!  Aaron Nihart and I ended up making a game out of getting hit by waves.  The goal was to stay sitting the longest.  It was very difficult to win!

We spent the rest of our night in Monterosso sitting on a sea wall.  A live band was performing directly behind where we sat.  It was a Rolling Stones impersonation band.  It was hilarious because they would talk to the crowd in Italian, and then begin to sing perfect English for the songs!  At 11:45 we finally caught the train back to Riomaggiore.  We were all exhausted and quickly fell asleep.

The next day we awoke at an early hour.  The plan for the day was to hike a trail that connects all 5 cities of Cinque Terre.  The first leg of the trail was a perfectly flat stretch that skirted along the edge of the mountain above the waves of the Mediterranean Ocean.  The rest of the trail was not the same.  What was once flat and easy hiking turned into a 2 foot wide path that literally went vertical for many portions.  I thought I was going to break my ankle several times.  I along with a couple of other guys said to heck with finishing the trail and hopped on a train to go to the beach.  The rest of the guys finished the hike. They looked exhausted when they finally reached the beach.

That night, everyone went out for a nice supper.  I and several other guys were craving fresh seafood.  Riomaggiore delivered.  I had a seafood salad that contained octopus, squid, prawns, crab, swordfish, and several other things that I couldn't identify.  My main dish was a fillet of swordfish with grilled eggplant.  I of course had to finish with a cheesecake.  I definitely felt like a fatty at the end of that meal.

After supper we all went to relax on the rocks next to the ocean.  The cool breeze that came off of the Mediterranean was a great relief from the heat that we have become accustomed to in Rome.  Nearby and party was going on.  A large foam machine was blowing foam onto the crowd.  On our way back the hostel, you could see a trail of foam leading up the road.

The final day in Cinque Terre, we woke up and immediately headed for the ocean to take in its beauty one last time.  After about 2 hours we decided we should head out.  We once again grabbed some pizza from Il Bomber and began our short trek to the train station.  We all got on our train and headed for Rome.  I didn't want to leave Cinque Terre.  It was such a great relief to get out of the big city of Rome and back into a small town like I'm used to.  I will definitely make another trip back some time in my life.  I think you will see why!