cinque terre

The next (and last) stop on my busy few weeks of visitors was Cinque Terre, Italy with Matt & Lloyd. When I did my Eurotrip after college with 4 girlfriends, this was one of our favorite stops so I was eager to go back.

 

We took the train from Lauterbrunnen early Friday morning. We had about an hour and a half in Milan between trains, so we stopped for lunch and some vino on a park bench outside the train station. This was the first bottle of several bottles of wine we would consume that day.

 

 

We stayed in Monterosso, which is the one town of the five which I didn't visit when I was in Cinque Terre 7 years ago.

 

Friday evening we went on a boat tour. It was wonderful. We sipped prosecco and chatted with the other 4 people on our tour. It was great to see the towns from the water which I hadn't done before. It's just so beautiful there!

 

We stopped in one of the towns for tapas and lots of white wine. We ate sardines and mussels and other super fresh seafood which was amazing.

 

We even convinced our tour guide to play some of our music, which included "Born in the USA". Needless to say, we were the life of the party on our boat.

 

 

After the boat tour, we went to a wine bar with a Canadian couple we met on the boat tour. We had wine, spritzers, and lemoncello (even though I said I would never drink that again...I still don't like it).

 

 

Saturday, we hiked from Monterosso all the way to Manarolo via Vernazza and Corniglia. Due to floods and mudslides a few years ago, a lot of the normal trails are still closed. Therefore the hike from Corniglia to Manarolo took 1.5 hours (and included a steep climb) versus the normal 30-40 minute trail. The views all day were breathtaking.

 

It rained on and off all day. This resulted in our rain jackets being saunas and not being able to tell what was sweat and what was rain.

 

The boys left Sunday morning, but I still had the day to spend in Cinque Terre. So I took the ferry to Riomagiorre, the one town we didn't make it to on Saturday, and the town I stayed in the last time I was there.

 

This town is just absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately, it seemed that the tourists had doubled since I was here last time, but its easy to see why people want to come here.

 

 

After walking around the town, I decided to try to find this lookout that my girls and I spent an evening at 7 years before. This lookout was the home to one of our favorite and most memorable nights of our Eurotrip. And...I found it! It was one of those times which was perfect for reflection,  sitting on a bench that I had sat on 7 years ago (almost to the day).

 

The rest of the afternoon I spent in the garden of the hotel, reading amidst the lemon trees.

 

The train from Milan back to Switzerland was already fully booked when I went to book it, so I had already planned to spend the night in Milan and get back to Switzerland first thing Monday morning. I didn't go out and see any of the city. For the second time in a few days, all I saw of Milan was the train station: