The last 24 hours have been something out of this world -- I have discovered heaven on earth! Erin and I are spending our second night here and I never want to leave, although we must move on to Rome tomorrow afternoon. Sad, but it's not like Rome is a terrible thing either, I just can't imagine anything will ever measure up to this place. It's called Cinque Terre and is a national park in Italy that consists of 5 very small towns untouched by major tourism. Lots of people are here, but nothing like the typical tourists cities I've been visiting. Each town is a few kilometers from the next and you can get to to each one by hikes of various degrees of difficulty or by train. We had to take the trains today due to rock slides on the major trails, which was unfortunate.
As for each town, we are staying in the most southern town - Riomaggiore. All the towns are right on the western side of Italy, on the Mediterranian Ocean. The restaurants and bars can be counted on a single hand and are run by locals who are intent on keeping this place low-key while still amazing. The buildings, from the outside, show their age quite clearly. The room we are staying in is over 400 years old. However, the interior of all the buildings is quite up to date and very astonishing at first. Not at all what I expected, especially for 60 euros a night for two people! Nothing can really explain how amazing this place is, so I'll post some pictures once I am on the train to Rome as I would not want to waste my time in front of the computer while I was here.
Last night Erin and I just hung out in our small town and drank wine (a bit too much for me!) and partied with the locals and fellow tourists, including some folks from Santa Cruz and South Carolina. The Santa Cruz girls went to UCSC and were very nice, though I can't remember any names. The South Carolina guys were hilarious and I found myself talking with a southern accent after hanging out with them for a while. Bern, Hal, and Thomas were their names and they had all just graduated college. I hope we run in to them again today, they were so fun to hang out with and immitate their lingo. They kept asking if Erin and I were from the south, I guess we were pretty obvious with our efforts to immitate them! I got to sleep around 1AM after successfully falling down the stairs and landing on my ass (I have a bruise to prove it happened).
I woke up at 9:30AM and quickly got ready for a long day. Erin and I visited the other 4 towns: Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, and Manarola. None of them were as cool as our town, but they were still utterly amazing. The closest town, Manarola, had a very nice swimming area, including a 25ft cliff to jump off of in to the incredibly turquoise ocean. I decided right then we needed to come back later that day and jump off. We then moved up to the 3rd, 4th, and 5th towns, none of which were as amazing as Riomaggiore. The 5th town, Monteroso al Mare is a total beach town, with the feeling that a small town outside Santa Cruz (such as Capitolla) might give off. Very cool, just not my thing. So we went back to our town, rented a kayak, and set off in the ocean. Getting to the second town took quite a while because I was in front and the stronger paddler is supposed to be in the back (we didn't learn this until a guy at the second town informed us).
Once we got to the second town, we tried finding a place to dock but ended up finding a nice couple from Minnesota (can you tell Americans dominate this place?) who offered to "borrow" our kayak while we jumped from the rocks. So while they were gone, we gathered up the courage to make the jump, hung out with another family from Seattle, and then jumped back in our kayak. Coming home was literally three times faster when I was in the back, which was nice, because my shoulders were getting very tired. And that's where I am right now, so time to go out and take it easy, pictures will come tomorrow (not that anyone will get these updates until I get online in Rome anyway).
6:45:05 PM 
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