Day 70 April 18th 2009 Cinque Terre, Italy

Got out of the apartment early this morning to jump a train from Termini station up to Firenze to meet my illustrious travel cohort Katie E. “Carmen San Diego” Suominen. We then boarded a couple of trains that took us all the way up to the Italian Riviera to the small 60 degree sloped-on-a-mountain town of Riomaggiore. The hike up on the road to the hotel reception left us winded. After depositing our baggage in what can only be described as Batman’s small Italian town version of the batcave, we boarded a short train to the neighboring town of Monterosso. Here we began the famous Cinque Terre hike that spans the five coastal towns. Well we actually only completed the Due Terre hike as for some reason Katie and I can never come prepare correctly for a hike of any sort. Last year we hiked Camel’s Hump with 30 pound backpacks of camping gear on our backs only to find that you can’t actually camp on Camel’s Hump and we would need to hike an additional 1.5 miles in the dark to get to the campsite. Needless to say, both then and now we took the route that led as quickly home as possible. But the sights were beautiful, with the Tyrrhenian Ocean below us and carved terraced Vermentino and pigato vines crawling out from the rocky soil. Oh I didn’t mention why were unprepared for the hike. Katie was wearing thong sandals and we had not a bottle of water nor trail snack between us. Soo typical. But we made it finally to the town of Vernazza which was stunningly beautiful as well. Starving we were, so we sat down on a rock jetty and ate some delicious bruschetta con pesto e pomodoro, insalata frutti di mare e Trofie con pesto (the local pasta). The pesto was to die for here. After the delicious meal we jumped a train back from Vernazza to Riomaggiore for a riposo nap. But in typical fashion we did not wake up from this nap until 7am the next morning.