Cinque Terre

I woke up at the ungodly hour of 6am today in order to walk to the Campo di Marte train station for the 7:30 train to La Spezia. I walked with all the USC roommates, minus one who is in Paris for the weekend. We got to the station early, so we stopped at the station cafe and got a bite of breakfast. I wasn't feeling up to solid food yet, so I got a cappuccino. 

Surprisingly good station coffee.

The train to La Spezia took about an hour and a half. I ate a yogurt along the way (that I had brought with me) and tried unsuccessfully to nap. I still feel sick, and I've been hacking up and dribbling mucus all day. I spent most of the train ride doing that.

Me and USC Di on the train.

We had about an hour stop at La Spezia, so we walked around the city for a bit. Like Cinque Terre, La Spezia is along the western coast, but it's a much bigger and modern-looking city. We briefly stopped at a cafe, where the roommates got coffee and I got to use the bathroom, but we didn't get to look around very much.

Walking around La Spezia.

There was also this fountain. What it looks like is up to interpretation.

At around 10 we went back to the train station and took the 5 minute trip to the first of the Cinque Terre cities, Riomaggiore. We got off the train, walked through a tunnel, and pretty much walked into a figurative postcard. The view in this city doesn't look real, because the colors are so bright. The weather was perfect, and there weren't so many people because it's no longer tourist season. We walked along the cliff a little, and then climbed down to the rocks on the beach.

First view of the ocean.

Better lighting here.

Behind me is the city. To the left, not pictured, is lots of water.

The quintessential Cinque Terre photo.

Marble rocks on the beach.

Getting all the views in.

Looking up the main Riomaggiore street.

After walking up and down the main street, I took a turn at random and walked up a bunch of stairs to get to the cliffs around the top of the city. From there, we found a trail that led to the next town in Cinque Terre, but we didn't end up taking it. On the one hand, we probably could have seen a lot more pretty things if we had walked, but on the other hand, two of us were sick and coughing and two others had bad knees, so it might have been miserable if we had walked. Next time I happen to be in Cinque Terre, I guess.

Looking down from the top of the city.

There's the train station. 

There was an elevator back down to ground level (guarded by a cohort of pigeons), but you had to pay to use it. Devious!

Very content mourning dove.

When we were done looking around Riomaggiore, we walked back to the station and bought tickets for the next city, Manarola. The train ride only took about 2 minutes, and we arrived at around 12:20. We were all hungry, so we picked a restaurant and had lunch. I split a vegetable soup and a pesto pasta with the other vegetarian in the group. The vegetable soup in particular was good. For dessert we stopped into a bakery and got some cannoli.

Pesto pasta (I remembered to take a picture towards the end of the meal).

Showing off a cannolo.

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Walking around Manarola after lunch.

Train station, waiting for the train to Vernazza.

We walked around Manarola a bit, and then took the train to the next town, Vernazza. There was a brief train stop in Corniglia, another of the towns, along the way, but we didn't get off there for time reasons. Vernazza is supposed to be the most scenic city. To me all the cities kind of looked the same, but I'm not really complaining.

Walking down the main Vernazza street.

No Conads, but there are Coops.

This tunnel leads from the city to the beach.

The church behind me sits right on the waterfront.

We climbed some stairs in the city before decided to move on to the last town in Cinque Terre, Monterosso. We had bought train tickets for Monterosso in advance, and they were technically for an hour later, but we took and earlier train to try to get there before it got dark. The train took two minutes, and we arrived at the station at the beginning of sunset, at around 4:30. There wasn't very much to see in Monterosso besides the beach and sunset, but that was nice anyway.

The bar had a good location overlooking the beach.

Bocconcini!

Picture-taking is the main activity in Cinque Terre, I think.

This place is probably packed with people during the summer. I'm glad I didn't go then.

These ducks in a souvenir shop are wearing boots.

At 5:50 we walked back to the station and got on the train to La Spezia. From there we switched trains and got on one to Pisa. On that train I did one of those things where you wake up suddenly without having realized you've fallen asleep, right when we arrived in Pisa. We got off the train there, realized we had to get back on the same train in order to get to Florence, and went ahead and did that. We got back to the Florence Santa Maria Novella station at 8:30pm. We went back to the apartment, I had pasta for dinner, and that was the day.

Florence has Christmas lights set up now in the streets. It reminds me of home!