Day 38: Sunday
Woke up around 7 to hear church bells ringing continuously for at least a half hour, then fell back to sleep for about an hour. We got ready to leave, and grabbed some breakfast at a little café on the way. I got an egg sandwich and a pastry, and Elli got a take-away omlette. We bought our passes for the train and the trails, and began making our way down Via Dell’Amore toward Manarola. We continued along the path until we arrived in Manarola, which was almost the same as Riomaggiore, with the hills, stairs, cliffs, and marina. We walked around the town and saw the vertical vineyards, found a piazza with a great view and a church, and then made our way down to the marina. We arrived just in time to see a couple girls trying to jump off a huge rock into the water. We were convinced we were about to watch them jump to their death, so we kept moving. We heard the splash of one jump, and the other one chickened out and never jumped. Stupid girls. The water in the marina looked so perfectly inviting, but it was not time for us to swim yet, so we pressed on. We found a path along the cliffs that we decided to walk along, getting a view of the other villages, and we saw some people swimming in the bay. We decided it was probably about time to move on, however, and we hopped on the train to Corniglia. We were greeted at the train station by a huge cliff with endless stairs to the top. We were dismayed, but we nevertheless began the climb up. 382 stairs later, we were in the town of Corniglia. It was much like the first two, only much higher up, and it seemed the most lived in out of all the villages. We walked around, saw a view of the beach but didn’t feeling like climbing down only to have to climb back up, got some ice cream, pet a kitty (I did, not Elli), and then had to head back down to catch the next train. The next town is Vernazza. It was much more touristy than the other villages, and when we arrived at the marina, it was packed with people. We decided to get some lunch, so we went to a place back by the train station and got some pesto, since the region is famous for it. Our waiter was super adorable and I liked him. After lunch we wandered through the village, found a place with a view to take a picture, then wandered back down to the marina and sat with our feet in the water for about a half hour. I even let the little fishies get close to my feet! We walked back to the train station and bought some postcards on the way. There was a kitty sitting in a box in the place we bought the postcards from, so I got to pet him! Finally we hopped on the train to head toward Monterosso, the final village. We stayed in Monterosso for a total of 30 minutes. It was awful. This is the only village with an actual beach with sand, but the entire stretch of beach was entirely PACKED with people and umbrellas. It reminded me of Waikiki beach. We tried to wander around the town, but there was literally nothing, so we decided to get back on the train and go to Manarola to where we saw the people swimming earlier. We were so hot and so ready for a swim by the time we found a place to put our stuff down and change. The place we decided on was amazing. We were swimming literally underneath sheer cliffs. There were caves in the water as well. The water was so refreshing, and we swam for quite some time before we finally got out to put sunscreen on. We took pictures of ourselves swimming from the path above, and we look like tiny little white specks in the ocean. We laid in our spot for as long as our time allowed, and I fell asleep for a bit. It was soooo hot. I got changed back into my clothes while Elli went for one last swim, and we reluctantly packed up our stuff to head back to the train station to go home. I grabbed a hot dog on my way to the station, then we waited for the train to La Spezia, then grabbed some fries from McDonald’s when we got there while we waited for the train back to Florence. I slept and read on the way home, and finally we made it home. It was so nice to return to somewhere familiar. It was nice, however, until I returned home to find my computer non-functional. It simply would just not turn on. It said it didn’t recognize the adapter, and I tried to run a diagnosis but it didn’t find anything. In addition to finding a dead computer, I developed a sore throat on the train ride home and was starting to feel sick again after being better for about a week. I felt absolutely horrible about everything, especially after such a perfect weekend. I showered, made food, told everyone about our weekend, and showed Mike and David my pictures, and Mike was nice and let me use his computer.
