Easter in the land of gelato, pizza, and pasta

I started writing this post about three weeks ago, sorry!

So I know I haven't updated in a while, but that just means I'm having

too much fun, right? :)

Last Thursday I left for Italy with my friends Sam, Julie, Jill, Lindsay,

and Sara. We flew Ryanair out of Beauvais, a small (like really small) airport an hr north of Paris. We arrived in Pisa an hour late because of air traffic control issues and managed to get very lost before finally finding our hotel. We stayed within walking distance to the Leaning Tower, the famous landmark located in

the centre of the city. After checking in we headed to dinner for our first italian meal. The pasta was just as good as I had remembered it being.

The next day we took the train to Riomaggiore, the first of the 5 Cinqueterre (translation: five lands). I had been here before, about 3 yrs ago with my family but only for the day. The weather was gorgeous the day of our arrival--sun shining, waves gently crashing into the rocks, seagulls everywhere. We were slightly worried about our accomadations because I had read reviews of the hotel and the majority of them were not good (70% of the customers had NOT recommended it!). We were pleasantly surprised when the owner's son led us down the hilly main street of the town to a seaside apartment. The views were incredible and worth every euro-cent. We walked around town the rest of the day and laid out on the rocks next to the sea. We didn't want to do too much since we would be hiking the next day.

Saturday was the great hike. There are many hiking trails that begin in Riomaggiore and go all the way to the last village, stopping at the three others in between. The first leg of the trail, from Riomaggiore to Manarola, is called the "Via dell'Amore" (the walk of love). This was an easy hike, more like a walk on a flat, cement path. After arriving in Manarola, we started thinking that this hike wasn't going to be too bad. I had read the entire hike takes 5hrs, but we didn't think it could possibly take that long to get to the last village of Monterosso al Mare. HOW WRONG WE WERE!

Let's just say that we were all misled by the easiness of the first leg. The rest of the hike was pretty exhausting and arduous. My friends Lindsey and Julie, both athletes, hiked together, while my friend Jill and I lagged behind, stopping every so often to breathe. My friend Sara left Riomaggiore over an hour and a half after we had begun the hike and still managed to catch up to Jill and I during the last leg of the hike (to be fair, the four of us stopped at each town be came upon for 15 mins or so, and Sara did not, so we weren't that slow).

The length of the trail was only 11km, but the part that was difficult and scary was the height of the trail. We would climb and climb and climb, only to descend the hills, and then climb back up. It was difficult! The scary part was the fact that the trail, at times, was only a foot or two wide, with nothing to catch you if you fall. Jill slipped twice and grabbed onto the grassy hill to

keep her balance. This was not a trek for the clumsy (apparently, I'm not as clumsy as people say I am!) We made it to Monteresso with minimal injury and feasted on pizzas made by a Californian girl who had married a guy from Italy and moved to Cinqueterre. The hike took a total of 6hrs, maybe a little more. By the end of it we were tired but feeling pretty accomplished and proud of what we had done :) We took the train back to the first village, had a late dinner, and slept like babies.

Easter Sunday we slept in until 11am. We met up with Julie's friend, Alexis, and some of her friends, who are all studying in Greece. We took the train to the last town and shopped around a bit. The villages are very small and full of Americans. The shops were very good--Sara and I found a really cute clothing store and a perfume store. When we had exhausted the shops in Monterosso, we headed for Vernazza, the biggest and , in my opinion, most beautiful of the Cinque terre villages. This is the town I had visited 3 years ago, so I was mildly familiar with it. We did some more shopping and then headed back to our town for nap and later, some dinner.

Monday morning we took in the last hours of our time in Cinque terre. We found a rocky beach and tanned for a few hours in the warm sunny weather. In the afternoon, we made our way back to Pisa to catch our flight, which was around 730pm. We were sad to leave Italy, but were ready to go back to Paris, the city that we now comfortably can call home.

That's all for now. Enjoy!

Au revoir :)