Laugh Leeshamay: Day 45

I think I'm in love with Italy now...Cinque Terre was BEAUTIFUL!! Next time when I come back to Italy I want to stay in one of these towns for a couple days.

We took the "Cinque Terre Trek" tour from the same company as yesterday's "Best of Tuscany" tour. Since this one started an hour earlier, because the drive was over two hours to get to Cinque Terre, they gave us a boxed breakfast which was delicious! As we got closer and closer to the sea the views became amazing! The water is so many shades of blue, it was what I pictured Greece to look like, but not Italy.

We started on our journey in the town of Manarola. Our trek to the next town took us through wine vineyards which are situated on the steep hills and cliffs and along the coast which was breathtaking! The next town we stopped in was Corniglia which was a little bit bigger than Manarola but still not that big! We stopped for lunch here and had typical cuisine for this region which was sea food and pesto pasta (yum my favorite!). It was so nice to sit on the restaurant's terrace, enjoy a nice meal and look out to the sea. Another reason I love these towns is because part of their charm comes from the bright colors of their buildings, they're just so fun!

After lunch we took our final hiking trek to the next town of Vernazza. This part of the hike was a bit more challenging but nothing we couldn't handle. Also by this point the sea was getting closer and closer to us and all we wanted to do was jump in! So the first thing that we did once we got there was jump in...I can now say I've swam in the Mediterranean Sea! The water was super salty but super clear. The view of the beach with the towns was one of my favorite as we were swimming, it was just crazy to think we were swimming in a town in Italy!

Next we took a train to the neighboring town of Monterosso...there was a beach here too so Mer and I got some gelator and headed down there just to relax, well I went to relax and Mary went to jump off of rocks into the ocean. It was interesting because the beach was made of pebbles and we kept finding these bright green and red rocks...I could probably have sat there and collected pebbles all day if I wanted to. Afterwards we took a ferry boat back to the very first town, which we hadn't been to yet, named Riomaggiore. Once again another beautiful sight, although we didn't spend much time there because we took the walk from there back to our first stop at the town of Manarola to meet up with our bus for our journey home. The walk between these two towns is called the Via Dell Amore (Love Walk) and most surfaces of this walk were covered in locks which it is said if you put a lock with you and your love's name on it, throw the key into the sea, as long as the key remains in the sea you two will be together. It was quite cute, might have to bring back a lock with me next time I'm there ; )