Cinque Terre

So after the train ride from Florence to La Spezia, I took another short train up to Riomaggiore. Riomaggiore is one of the five small towns that make up the Cinque Terre in Liguria. My real interest was kayaking by the five towns, so I rented a boat after about 10 minutes of looking around in Riomaggiore. The water in the Mediterranean was amazing, and it gives you a completely different perspective of the five towns too. I paddled from Riomaggiore up to Vernazza before heading back.

I really only wanted to kayak through the five towns, but I figured that I might as well hike the trail while I'm there. Although if I'd known that beforehand, I probably would have planned for the hike a little better. I was traveling with just my backpack, which was loaded with about 50 pounds of stuff by this point of the trip. My bad shoulders were already killing me from carrying it around all week. The hike wasn't too difficult until you get past Manarola, the second town. When you're going into Corniglia, you have to climb the "Lardarina." The Lardarina is basically 33 flights of stairs that lead into the town. I found it amusing that they actually have a name for the steps:

I think I may have nightmares about this part of the trail for a long time. By this point, I definitely just wanted to take a nap...but I figured I might as well finish the entire trail since I'd already started it. Even though the hikes from Corniglia to Vernazza, and from Vernazza to Monterosso had a ridiculous amount of steps, the view was definitely worth it!

You have to be careful because a lot of places have very small pathways and little or no railing. It can be a huge pain when you meet people coming from the other direction.

Anyway, so after the 11-mile hike, a few hours of kayaking, and traveling all day with my backpack, I was absolutely exhausted. Luckily I finished up the trail right before sunset.

The Cinque Terre is obviously a beautiful place, but there are some problems. One is that there are way too many tourists there. Even in September, the place was overrun by Americans. I saw far more Americans here than any place I've been to in Europe so far. It makes me wonder what the locals think of it all. Another problem was the Italian trains...but I'll get back to that another time.

I went back to La Spezia because I was staying the night over at Ernesto's apartment. Ernesto lends out his couch to couchsurfers--for those who don't know, couchsurfing is basically a hospitality networking system where you stay at other members' homes when you go to different towns. It's all free, but more importantly, it's a much better way to learn about local cultures than just staying in a hotel. The language barrier can be a bit challenging, but I guess that's part of the experience too.

Back in La Spezia, there was a street festival in town that weekend. We checked out a few different street performers around town--jugglers, comedians, etc. Then we met up with Ernesto's friends and I followed them around while they spoke Italian. Somehow we ended up in a 100-year-old movie theater at around 11:00. At this point, I had no idea what was going on. The movie turned out to be an Italian movie about a Sri Lankan handball team that defected in Germany. I'm completely serious. I couldn't understand any of the words, but at least I got that much out of it. At this point, it was well after 1:00 and finally time to go to sleep.