Belle Cinque Terre!

After nearly 24 hours of travel... we finally made it! We left Barcelona on a night train to Milan, then got on a train to Genova, then to La Spezia, and finally to Riomaggiore (village in Cinque Terre). We arrived with no place to stay, a fortunately had no problem finding an apartment for 2 nights in the village that we arrived in! By the time that we got settled, it was about 5pm and Cinque Terre being a small town was just winding down for the day. Since our place was in what I think was the perfect location, we were able to switch into our bathing suits and head out to the "beach" on the Italian Mediterranean coast! This beach was definitely different from beaches back home in Florida in that there was NO sand, only big, smooth rocks! Except for nearly slipping on the rocks that were under the water, I really liked the "rocky beach" experience in that it was really cool to not have to worry about getting sand in your suit! :) We took a while to cool off from our long day of HOT train rides (lots of intercity trains, so not much a/c), watched the sunset over the water, then settled in for the night to start fresh the next day!

Our full day in Cinque Terre made us absolutely fall in love with the place!!! After spending the last week+ in big cities in search of various landmarks, this nature scene was just what we needed. For those of you who aren't familiar with Cinque Terre, it is made up of 5 close villages along the coast of north Italy. As the websites and tour books we read suggested, we took a train ride up to the first (northernmost) of the 5 villages and started to hike to the second village from there. The whole hike was basically UP and DOWN the side of a cliff! The path was very challenging (especially with the heat) and took about 1.5 hours, but it was well worth it to see the amazing view of the water, the villages, and the vegetation that was growing all along the side of the cliff! I think I did pretty well along the 12,000+ step hike (at least that's what it was according to the pedometer), especially for being 3.5 months pregnant!!! After the hike between those two villages (which I read is the hardest of the 4 hikes), we decide to take a train to the next villages, then just do the last hike between the 4th and 5th villages (which was pretty much cake).

We arrived back in our village of Riomaggiore exhausted and totally sweating, so we decided to rent some snorkle equipment and hit the ocean again. The swim was, of course, beautiful! I wish we had been able to take more pictures of the whole day!!! If you ever go to Italy, you HAVE TO make the villages of Cinque Terre one of your "must see" stops!!!

My "favorite" in Cinque Terre were the fact that we probably had the most physically demanding day, yet it was also the most relaxing day of the trip so far!!! And the rocky beach was really cool too!