Victory in Cinque Terre

Hiking through Cinque Terre consisted of having to stare at views like this the entire day:

So basically, it was a breeze.

Minus a few steep inclines and staircases....

But each view was better than the next, and that's what kept us going through the sweat and heat.


We also stopped to take a lot of pictures. You know, in one of those, "WOW, would you look at that view! I'd better stop for five minutes to photograph it before starting up that very, very steep incline up ahead..." kind of ways. Here are Caroline and Margaret looking fresh as daisies despite all the hiking we had already done!

We also got to poke around each of the five little beach towns along the way.

In one of them, we made our way down to the water...



....and Caroline couldn't take it anymore and got right in! See her? She's the tiny little spec floating there in the middle.

There were just so many photo-ops. Here Mary Raine and I are pretending that sweat is not dripping down our faces.

McCallen and Margaret and I brought in the rear on the last leg of the hike, you know, to make sure that everyone was going to make it alright. We were quite excited (and very relieved) to see Monterosso come into view at the end of our hike (which ended up being around seven miles!) Those are faces of VICTORY.

Next time you're in Florence and it's sunny (and perhaps a tad cooler), here's what you should do. Hop on the 7am train from Florence to Pisa, Pisa to La Spezia, buy a Cinque Terre park day pass, get on the train to Riomaggiore (the first town), and get hiking! (Or there is a shuttle service and a train service that runs between each of the five towns--this could also help keep spirits high).

HOT TIP: Unless you want to walk up 30 kajillion stairs, you should hike from Vernazza to Monterosso and climb down the 30 kajillion stairs. Luckily, this is how we did it. But according to the British couple we met in Vernazza who had just hiked in the two hours from Monterosso, the other way was "murder. Just murder."

Ciao!
Grace