The end of March meant my first trip to Italy. Unfortunately, mismatched schedules and expensive tickets prevented me from being able to visit my friend Kori where she is studying in Rome, but she was going to Cinque Terre on the northwest coast with her roommates anyway, so I decided I could tag along. It was a fantastic choice.
I left Friday morning and flew to Milan, where I met up with Kori. We took the train to La Spezia, the closest city to Cinque Terre with a main train station. The train ride itself was an adventure... First of all, our seats for the 3 hr. ride were double booked, and the other people got there first. We decided to just take some other seats until it became a problem before we tried to talk to the conductor. This was fine until someone came to check our tickets. He informed us that our tickets were not valid because we had not “confirmed” them, and that we had to get off at the next big station, Genova, about halfway to La Spezia, to do so. We argued that of course they were valid, and we had bought them online, but he quite unconcernedly told us no, and moved on. This was all in broken Italian on our parts, and broken English in his, so there was much confusion. We were thrilled about the situation, but we knew that we had paid, so being the daredevils we are, we decided to just not get off at Genova and see what happened. In the meantime, we had to keep moving seats because people kept boarding and taking ours, and eventually we ended up on tiny seats that folded out of the aisles from the wall. This whole time we were petrified that the conductor would come back and kick us off or something. A few officials passed by us during the trip, but nobody questioned us at all. Quite ridiculous. We could easily have not had valid tickets and gotten away with it, little did we know. We found out later that the official had no idea what he was talking about and that our tickets were fine… We finally got to La Spezia and had to take a smaller regional train to Riomaggiore, the first village in Cinque Terre and the location of our hostel.
We managed to get on another long distance train instead, on its way back to Milan. Long story short, a couple hours later than planned, we made it to our hostel. It was too late to get dinner, so we settled for dessert and then crashed for the night. It was interesting first day.
Saturday morning we woke up to an absolutely gorgeous day. It was sunny and about 80°F, and we were in an adorable town on the Mediterranean.
We spent a few hours lying on the rocks by the marina, ‘cause why not? We then began our trek from Riomaggiore to Manarola on the Via dell’Amore, or “Lover’s Lane”. It’s about a 20 minute walk through the cliff wall, both in tunnels and in the open. Once in Manarola, were hungry, so we made our way upwards through the windy streets until we were well past the touristy areas. We stumbled on Billy’s Trattoria, and it was the perfect place for lunch.
The patio overlooked the rest of the town, the terraces of vineyards on the adjacent mountainside, and of course the Mediterranean. Billy’s served the best lunch I’ve possibly ever had, and certainly the best seafood.
I ordered the house white wine and seafood spaghetti, we got bread and olive oil and vinegar with it, and I spent less than €12. The spaghetti had the freshest clams, mussels, squid, scallops, and a gigantic shrimp-like animal. It may have been a pink baby lobster for all I know, but I really don’t care. It was sweet and tender and amazing. I even loved the wine, and I’m still learning to like wine, though I’ve made giant’s steps since coming to France.
After lunch, we took the train to the next town, Corniglia, since there had been a landslide and the most of the paths were closed. Corniglia is a fun trek, as you have to climb 382 steps from the train station to the town. We had climbed lots of cathedral towers in our time in Europe however, so it wasn’t too bad. Corniglia was a really cute town that seems to have been built almost straight up, rather than horizontally.Everything is just stacked up on top of itself on this tiny mountain. 
We got ourselves some gelato and watched some kids play soccer for a while, then found a broad wall overlooking the sea and hung out for a while. We left as the sun was setting to head back to Riomaggiore, and caught the sunset while we were waiting for the train.
That night we met up with Kori’s roommates for dinner. Cinque Terre is famous for its pesto, so bought some interesting pasta, shaped like little twists, and some local pesto, wine, and veggies and made ourselves a feast in their room. The pesto IS all it’s cracked up to be! Back in our hostel dorm later, we met the other people we were sharing it with. There were 2 Puerto Rican guys, two Americans, and Australian girl and a Swiss girl. They were a riot, and we stayed up late talking with them about all manner of things, even getting an invitation to visit Puerto Rico. This is something I’m really hoping to do, especially after hearing how they would show us the non-touristy beaches that are barely touched.
The next day our luck wasn’t quite as good with the weather, as it was cloudy for the most of the day. Kori and I, with her roommate Kayla, took the train to the two other villages that we hadn’t been to, Vernazza and Monterosso al Mare. Vernazza was in my opinion the cutest village of the 5. We got lunch at a pizzeria with a very amusing staff that had a good time giving us a hard time. The pizza was delicious, as was the sangria that we drank with it. Monterosso was probably my least favorite, as its main attraction was its beach and we couldn’t really enjoy it given the weather. I can imagine that in the summer when it’s sunny the beach is magnificent. We spent our time there mostly sitting on some driftwood on the pebbly beach and exploring the trails on the surrounding cliffs a bit. Not too shabby, even if we weren’t getting a tan.
For dinner that night we headed back to Riomaggiore and went to one of the seafood restaurants. I got mussels stuffed with parmesean, tomato sauce, and herbs, which were phenomenal, and squash soup with lots of nutmeg, also delicious.
We had to leave on Monday to get back for classes, and it was probably good timing, as it rained all day Monday. We got a relaxed breakfast before leaving at a café that served the best fresh squeezed orange juice from red blood oranges, then I got back on the train for Milan, and Kori and Kayla headed back to Rome. I would have loved to do some actual hiking in Cinque Terre, but our time lying on the rocks in the sun replaced that, and I’m really not too cut up about it. I even got a little sunburnt!
And waffles! Don't forget about Belgian Waffles!!!
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