Pisa and the Cinqueterre

I'M BAAAAAAACK!!!!!
Spring break was amazing! I couldnt be happier with how smoothly everything went. We travelled for almost 3 weeks without any major bumps along the way... definitely a huge success. I saw so many awesome things and can't wait to tell you all about them!

I'll start with the first part of the trip:

We left alicante early friday morning. Our flight was at 6:30 so we woke up at 4 and left for the airport at 4:45. Our first stop for spring break was Pisa and the Cinqueterre in Italy. Our flight was from alicante to madrid, then madrid to pisa.

We had a 6 hour layover in Madrid, and luckily i was able to make good use of my time there. I met up with the Smith/Hopkins (the family i work for in takoma park,  the past year and half during the school year i drove their kids Wesley and Edie from school to swim practice and field hockey and other places). They were in spain for spring break and happened to be in madrid the same time as me. I was so, so happy to see them! I was used to seeing Wes every single day in the school year so i definitely missed them a lot. After my flight i took the metro downtown and We met in puerta del sol (right down the street from where i stayed my first weekend in spain) where theyre hotel was. Timing was perfect and they were walkling out right when i got out of the metro. We caught up and grabbed breakfast at their hotel and hung out for a little bit before i had to start heading back to the airport at 11. It was so nice to catch up with them and always nice to see a familiar face!

I caught the metro back very easily, found my way to the ryan air desk and met back up with bianca and jen.... ALMOST without a hitch. Everything was fine until i got to the ryan air desk. I waited for about 5 minutes at the desk where i thought i was supposed to get my passport checked (it looked exactly like the one in alicante.) the lady at the desk was nice and pointed me in the right direction and it was no problem since i had given myself plenty of time. I went to the check in dek for international flights and stood in THAT line for 15 minutes only to fine out i was suppopsed to be 2 lines over in the 'visa check' line. I finally got in the right line and stood in that line for another 15 minutes. The guy at the visa desk was checking the size AND weight of the carry on bag for EVERY. SINGLE. PERSON. checking in. It was absolutely ridiculous! Even if a persons bag was clearly the right size he made them walk 2o ft away to the bag check, then weighed their bags. At this point i got nervous because although i knew my bag would fit, i wasnt sure that it was under the 10 kilo weight limit (about 20lbs) Also, this made the usually fast check in process take 5 times longer. So annoying. I eventually made it up front and put my bag on the scale. 10.5 kilo. The guy started to tell me that it was a 35 euro charge for my bag and i said "there is absolutely not going to be a 35 euro charge because i would rather throw out half my clothes than Give you any more of my money" i then told him i was going to go put on all the clothes in my bag and he told me to come back when i was done. If he was going to be that petty and rude about half a kilo i was going to be just as petty back. I threw my bag to the side and proceeded to put on 3 sweaters and 4 shirts (i got some applause from people in the check in line) i stuffed my pockets with as much as possible - i also forgot i had 18 euro in coins in my bag (which is enough to weigh it down as it is) so i put that in my pocket as well. As soon as i got to security i stuffed my bag back up with everything i had taken out and had no problem fitting it in the overhead bin... Thank-you very much!

Our flight ended up leaving almost an hour late and when we fonally got to Pisa and were ready to land, there was traffic and we had to fly over pisa for 45 minutes. so fun! This was a pain because our original pisa flight was suppposed to get there at 12:10 pm and it got changed tp 4 pm. With the delays, we didnt arrive until 6, which is quite a big difference when you were only planning on spending the afternoon there! Flight aggravations asside we navigated the bus system and found our way to the leaning tower... HOW IS IT STILL STANDING!?!? Very cool. As with the eiffel tower is was so much more cool to see it in person. We took s few obligatory pics then went back to the train station to catch the train to la spezia to get to our hostel.

For the cinqueterre we initally booked 2 nights at a guesthouse that was recomended to me by a friend. It was a little more that we wanted to spend so we decided to spend the other two nights (friday and monday) at a cheaper hostel just outside the cinqueterre. The hostel was located in the TINY town of biassa. We caught the train to la spezia, then caught a bus to biassa that took us up to the top of a hill on crazy winding roads. It was dark and very creepy so we were glad we werent the only hostel people on the bus! We made it to the hostel alive and checked into our room.. This was my first hostel experience! Very simple, but clean and exactly what we needed. After getting settled we went tp have dinner at the ONLY restaurant in town. I did not have high expecations since it seemed kind of linked with the hostel... I was picturing frozen pizza and stale bread. WRONG! I think it might have been the best place we ate all weekend! I got Tris Testaroli (a specialty of the ligurian region) testaroli is a flat pasta, shaped like small pacakes. They gave 3 pieces - one with pesto (which originated in this region), one with cheese and one with mushroom cream sauce. Amazing! The pasta was definitely made from scratch and so, so good. I obviously went back monday night and got the same thing.

this is the best picture i could find on google. pretty much looks
like what i had except there were 2 more, one with the mushroom
sauce and one with the cheese.

Saturday morning we caught the bus to the first town of the cinqueterre, Riomaggiore. It was pretty cloudy and rain was in the forecast so we were pretty bummed about that. Once we got to riomaggiore we walked around for a little then caught the train to monterosso where we would be staying for the next 2 nights.

For those of you that dont know (i hadnt heard of it until just before i left the US) the Cinqueterre is located on the northwest coast of Italy (the italian riviera) it is made of up 5 towns along the coast (cinqueterre means '5 towns'). From bottom to top the towns are: Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso. The big draw of the Cinqueterre is the hiking - you can hike from each town ( most hikes are about 2 hours) through olive orchards, vineyards, and forests - all with beautiful coastal views. The hiking routes have become more popular in recent years (especially among americans).

Before i left a friend recomended the Cinqueterre and suggested I stay at Manuel's guest house in monterosso. It sounded great so we decided to try it ... Best. Decision. EVER! You are out of your mind If you go to the cinqueterre and do not stay here! The guest house is located at the top of the town (so its a few flights of stairs up) its a cute pink house with a huge terrace, tucked in the middle of a lemon grove with cobble stone walls and beautiful flowers everywhere. The view of the town and the sea was unreal! We were greeted by manuels brother, giovanni, the jolliest little italian man who spoke 2 words of english and quickly introduced us to his ridiculously attractive son, Lorenzo, who was hanging laundry behind the terrace. Lorenzo showed us around our room and the property before we got settled and headed out to hike!

The terrace at manuels. Up top near the bar is where he serves
breakfast and snacks. There are also tons of lemon trees behind the bar!

the view from our balcony

Luckily the weather cooperated and while it wasnt sunny, the rain held off! First we hiked from monterosso to vernazza. The hike was a little threatening to start... Steep uphill and tons of stairs with little space to take a break without blocking the trail. Once it leveled out, It was a beautiful hike .. Through tons of vineyards and streams and you walked right through tons of olive groves. The trails became very narrow at times which was sort of a problem with people trying to walk in both directions. At one point jen almost fell down the hill (cliff would probably be more accurate) trying to get out of someones way.  Luckily, the guy caught her and she grabbed onto the railing, but she did get a pretty nasty scrape and a huge bruise down her leg! The hike took us a little over 2 hours to get to vernazza.

 Vernazza was amazing! Like most of the towns, it had brightly colored buildings and brightly colored row boats in the water. I had some amazing white chocolate gelato there before we started the next hike.

We ended up really lucking out with the hiking trails.. The past few weeks all but one of the trails had been closed due to damage from landslides. Just before we arrived they opened 2 more so we were able to hike a lot more that we thought. The hike from vernazza to corniglia was a little quieter than the first hike which was great! I definitely am not into being around of lots of people while hiking so it was nice it quieted down a little. While this hike was longer than the first one, it had a much more gradual uphill so it was much better. Even though we were tired when we finished, we decided to go ahead and do the last 'hike' from manarola to riogmaggiore. This is the easiest of the 4 hikes and is more of just a stroll. It is called "via del amore" (the lovers walk) and is a flat walk along the water. Along the trail people put padlocks on the fences and write their names or whatever as a sign of their love (corny, i know). It was cute though and we finished the walk, grabbed dinner in riomaggiore (gnocci e formaggio) and took the train back to monterosso. By the end of the day we had hiked a total of 5 hrs and 45 min!

Once back in monterosso we had a few glasses of wine on the terrace at manuels. The wine was really cheap and giovanni brought out a free platter of snacks with it. We were really exhausted and went to bed early.

Easter morning we woke up to an amazing breakfast at Manuels! Focaccia, croissants, fruit, yogurt, cheese, ham, and the best cappuchino ive ever had, made by giovanni himself! They also gave us each a slice of cake that is apparently an easter tradition in Italy, and wished us all a "Buona Pasqua" (happy easter)

Since we had already hiked all the towns, that day we decided to hike from Monterrosso to the nearby town of Levanto, further up the coast. Before we left we decided to read up a little about the hike, and thank god we did! We found on a trip advisor forum that someone recommended doing the hike from Levanto to Monterosso, because the hike on the Monterosso side was very steep with a lot of steps. We took their advice and took the 5 minute train ride to Levanto to start the hike. I actually think this eas my favorite hike from the whole weekend. Because this isnt technically one of the Cinqueterre hikes it was much less crowded. Also, the terrain of the hike varied a lot - it went from dry and rocky,to wooded and damp, to beachy, to vineyards and orchards, etc. It definitely kept it interesting! My favorite part of this hike was the views.. At one viewpoint you get a great view of all 5 towns along the coast.. Beautiful! (ps. They were NOT kidding about the steps and steepness of the monterosso side... It was absurd! My knees were killing me from the endlessa mounts of huge steep steps... Not sure i would have stuck with it if we went up that way!)

along the hike from levanto-monterosso

jen, bianca and i at one of the look outs

very cloudy (which is wierd because it was sunny where we were)
but you can see all 5 towns here!

After the hike we went back and got ready for our Easter dinner! The three of us agreed it didnt really feel right to eat out at a restaurant on easter, so that morning we got up and stocked up on some good italian food for dinner. The weather was beautiful so we set up our dinner on the terrace - fresh mozzerella, tomato and basil, focaccia pesto and olive oil, and procuitto and cheese. We got glasses of wine from giovanni, who seemed to like our dinner arrangement. He was so cute and helped us set up the tables, gave us plates, forks, knives etc. And had the biggest smile on his face. We even got a picutre with him to celebrate the occasion.

During our dinner we got talking to a couple from australia and another couple from ireland. They were so nice and fun to talk to. For dessert we bought a giant chocolate easter egg, which is the italiann tradition instead of easter baskets and chocolate easter bunnies. The egg was hollow  so we figured there would be candy or a toy inside. We cut it open with a knife only to find..... And electric tooth brush! Really? Funny joke italy! It was hilarious and everyone on the terrace got a good laugb out of it. We shared the chocolate with everyone and also went out and got a half-gallon of gelato for the 3 of us to split. We spent the rest of the night drinking wine on the terrace with another young couple from australia. They were hilarious and we spend a long time talking about the differences between america and australia.. And shark attacks! It was the perfect Easter away from home!

biggest letdown of the century

Monday was sadly our last day at manuels. We had another amazing breakfast than headed out for one last day in the cinqueterre. We spent the day town-hopping on the train and walked around each of the 5 towns. In Vernazza we went to get white chocolate gelato from this amazing place, and as we turned the corner we ran right into our other roommates (the taylors) and steph! We knew they were going to be there for one day but we didnt know what day or wheree so it was pretty crazy!

That night we went back to the hostel we stayed in the first night, survived a terrifying cab ride, and enjoyed one last amazing italian meal before leaving for our next part of spring break!

Here are some other random pictures from the Cinqueterre: