This past weekend I traveled with a group of CIMBA students to Cinque Terre, Italy. Cinque Terre is a region along the Italian Riviera composed of five villages: Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore. The region is a national park as well as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
One word to describe Cinque Terre: Stunning
The group of six students that I traveled with stayed in the town of Riomaggiore, our very first hostel! Quite the experience. The hostel itself was not too bad but the shower was a different story. Apparently, it is acceptable to call a "shower" an enclosed area where a dribble of water flows through a shower head. I am not sure if anybody in our hostel was able to get completely wet during our showers. I guess I should feel pretty lucky if that is the worst part of staying in a hostel. That being said, I have no idea how elderly people manage to make it up the six flights of stairs to their homes. Our group had a hard enough time as it was and we are in shape!
My time in Cinque Terre was spent at the beach. I bought the hiking ticket, yet never made it to the hiking trail. I am still questioning why I bought the ticket when I knew all I wanted to do was lay on the beach and catch some sun. Oh well. My entire afternoon was dedicated to enjoying the crystal clear turquoise water and basking in the Mediterranean sun. - I managed to get a pretty good tan that afternoon! After we packed up and left the beach, we decided eating some gelato was a must. I ended up making two trips to the gelateria because the dark chocolate gelato was so delicious. Afternoon: Success!
After returning to our hostel and enjoying that -amazing- shower, our group of six was anxious to find a nice restaurant to wine and dine. We quickly found a swanky (by Cinque Terre village standards) restaurant to sit down, relax, and converse on the days adventures. The wine and food were both great. I ordered a pasta dish with lobster. I am pretty sure the lobster was freshly caught off the coast that day. After dinner we enjoyed a few drinks and explored more of Riomaggiore.
Sunday morning we were up bright and early to check out of the hostel. If there is one thing I learned this weekend, it is that Italians like to go on strike. There was a national train strike on Sunday, meaning the train that was supposed to take us back to our bus was not coming. After a few hours of waiting in the rain with a mass of other students/tourists trying to get home, we managed to book two taxis to La Spezia (where our bus to CIMBA was). Situation resolved? Nope. Our taxis arrived late to pick us up and when they finally showed up, a group of students from Mizzou tried to steal them from us. They ran towards our taxis and insisted that the taxis were theirs. Ha! Being me, I nicely informed them that they were mistaken. As the rest of our group put their bags in the back of our car, the Mizzou students sprinted towards our other taxi and tried to hop inside. Both taxi drivers had the "what the f*** is wrong with Americans" look on their faces. After some arguing, the taxi driver finally resolved the situation by calling the number that booked the two cars. What a surprise, Ainsley's (student in our group) phone rang. We were finally off to La Spezia. After waiting four ours in the McDonalds at the train station, we finally loaded the bus and made it back to CIMBA.
Today marks our first full week of classes. I am excited to get into a routine again and even more excited for this upcoming weekend.
Agenda: Tuscany region for some wine tasting and to celebrate Kate's 21st birthday.
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| Sunday morning before leaving Cinque Terre. |
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