Cinque Terre

5 little towns connected by hiking paths on the northwest coast of Italy, the vivid blue Mediterranean gleaming below you as you huff and puff up and down sheer rock faces. AMAZING! Kenzie and I met a couple of Aussies, Ryan and Jock, outside our hostel lobby where you met the man who then took you to whatever unmarked building you spent the night in. He let Ryan and Jock stay at our same place so we became fast friends. We got our first true Italian pizza last night and strolled back around to a rocky beach where Ryan was absolutely amazed by lightning bugs. He has never seen them before and he thought they were the coolest thing ever. By the end of the night he had caught 4: Graham, Matilda, Lucas, and Genevieve. Graham was his favorite who stayed with him for more than 5 minutes, happily flashing his glower as a 22 year old Aussie sat amazed. We sufficiently freaked ourselves out talking about murder mysteries to the point where we were paranoid a dark shape was obviously someone out to get us. We left the beach after mustering up the courage to check out the man/rock that had stood watching over us. It was quite a fun night!

The next day the 4 of us set out to hike across all 5 of the towns. SO MANY STAIRS!  I have no idea how anyone in semi-bad-shape could do it. It gets a little dodgy (Jock’s favorite phrase) at some points where the path narrows to about a foot across and plants you have to duck under, all while trying not to fall off the sheer rock face to you left. Good stuff! We got some amazing pizza made on focaccia bread with pesto and mozzarella. It was the quintessential italian eatery. Small, in the family for 88 years, and with a happy skinny loud little Italian man running it. YUMMERZ! It’s going to be hard to beat that one but I have high hopes for Florence’s food scene. 

At the last town we rock jumped. We had been scouting good places to jump throughout the whole hike and finally found a place with a nice sheer face and a deep pool to jump into. What fun! We jumped off from a couple different heights, the highest for Kenzie and I being about 8 meters, the boys went up to about 10 but I was more worried about the getting there, scrambling across jagged rocks, than the jumping from that height. It was so nice to get to swim in the crystal clear ocean.

I really enjoyed it. We just popped home to the hostel to shower and then headed up to the clock tower to watch the sun set. Jock brought his guitar and Ryan brought his rugby ball so we had great entertainment. Afterwards we cooked dinner of pasta and pesto with tomato and fresh bread and Italian beer. Once stuffed, we headed down to the rocky beach to show the other Aussie the lighting bugs. We all called them something different: Me- Lightning bugs, Kenzie- Glow bugs, Jock- Fireflies, Ryan- Disco bugs.  We watched the lightning bugs and listened to jock play the guitar and sing to us while we stargazed and drifted in and out of sleep. It was the best night in Italy I could have imagined.

Now it is morning and I am sitting with Ryan and Jock before they head off to the train station. They have been good friends and I will be sad to see them go. They are so funny to be around. Ryan says the craziest things and Jock is a daredevil that will go along with whatever plan we come up with. It’s been fun. Kenzie and I hare headed to the beach today for some relaxing. Our legs are still shaking from the hike yesterday – I can officially say I hate stairs now. 

Pictures will be up in a couple days – I am having a blast – I miss and love you all  - At