This past weekend we went to Cinque Terre for a free weekend. It's five fishing villages on the coast of Northern Italy and it is absolutely beautiful. Even in the rain it was gorgeous. We left Montepulciano on Thursday afternoon and didn't get there until about ten or so at night, so it was a fairly long trip by bus and train. We stayed in a cute hotel in Forte dei Marmi, about thirty minutes from Cinque Terre. Friday we took the train to the first village and bought two day passes. The view from the train was incredible. You could see blue sea and the quaint shops built on the edge of cliffs. I've never seen such blue water before in my life. And this was on a crappy weather day, it wasn't even sunny! Friday the boats weren't running because of the bad weather but we still managed to walk the first path, which was paved, known as the Via Dell'Amore, or the Road of Love. It was really amazing, there were locks around the railing all over the place. What you're supposed to do is write the couple's names on the lock, lock it around the railing and throw the key into the Mediterranean Sea, and this ensures that your love will last forever.
On Saturday the weather cleared up for the first half of the day, so we were able to take a boat ride over from the last village, Monterosso, to the fourth village, Vernazza. It was really neat to see the villages from a different view. We had lunch and gelato and later that day we hiked the path from Vernazza back to Monterosso. Apparently this was the most difficult path and the most time consuming. It took us about two and a half hours to make it to Monterossa. Since it had rained the day before, it was still pretty muddy but what really made it worse is that it started raining again about the first hour we were hiking. This used to be the main way people would get from village to village if they couldn't sail between them, but that was years ago. The path is actually pretty scary, because for a good majority of it there is no railing and the path is about a foot wide, if not less. So I spent my 23rd birthday on the side of mountain climbing over, down and around slippery rocks and muddy paths. It was a pretty exciting birthday, but I'm not sure I have the nerves of steel to do it again. It ended up taking a lot out of me, so I was very glad to sit down afterwards and concentrate on not moving. I slept like a baby that night! Sunday I was ready to come back to Montepulciano, even though I really wanted to see Pisa. Hopefully on one of our free weekends I can take a day trip up to Milan and Pisa and walk around for a bit.
