Alright, so i have a lot to update.

i spent two night in cinque terre, which was AMAZING. i wish i had more time there but i had already booked my ferry to croatia. i really need to plan my trip day by day and not make any travel plans i cant get refunded for because i find its really limiting. i really have no idea how im going to feel about a place until i get there so its best to play it by ear. anyways.

Cinque terre are 5 little coastal towns connected by foot paths. when i got there it was nothing like i thought it would be. i was envisioning teeny italian towns where nobody spoke english and that were pretty but more or less sort of boring. i knew it was on the coast but i thought all the towns were up in the hills. in reality, all the towns are right on the water and they all have beaches, some sandy, some rocky. it is also the place where pesto was born so they have the best pesto in the world there. they are also famous for their anchovies, both of which i ate in abundance. its very cheap to buy a little supply of food there and throw it together into amazing meals. i had pasta with pesto, parmasean cheese and anchovies two nights in a row and it only cost me about 1.50 euro per night. i also brought pesto, anchovies, salami, pecorino cheese and bread with me on my hike and to the beach and made little open sandwiches.

my hike went well, i started at 8:30 and walked thre out of the four sections. i should have started from the other side and done the hardest bit first and ended with the easiest (which was basically a paved path along the coast for three miles. but as it was i started easy and couldnt finish because after the very tough third section my legs started spasming and i couldnt go on. so i spent the rest of the day sleeping, reading and eating on the beach. not a bad trade off. in all i hiked around 10 miles including a few offshoots from the trail. it was a beautiful hike once i got into the third part, along the coastline and through some beautiful lightly wooded areas. the paths also took me through the towns and i explored the highest town for about an hour.

the next morning i caught the train the ancona where i would board my ferry to croatia. it was a fairly long, tiring day on the train but the ferry ride was fun and i had a four bed room all to myself. ive never taken a ferry and it was very exciting, there was a restaurant and a casino on board and tons of couches to relax on. while i was reading a man approached me from a religious tour group and offered me free dinner with the group since some of them were fasting and they had extra food. the food wasnt that good but it was fantastic meeting people from all over the world who were going on a pilgrimage to a town where six children had reported seeing the mother mary (i think that was the story). they were all very nice and i was grateful for the company.

i got into split, croatia at 7am and meandered about until my hostel opened. the main part of town is actually in an old palace so i explored that (there was a very cool fish market) and then headed down to the coast. i walked along the water for a while then hiked up a mountain (its some sort of national park), went to a funny zoo at the top and then went down the the promenade and read for a while. later that night i went out with a bunch of people from my hostel to a bar and then a club, i dont know what time i got home but i feel pretty wrecked today.

Split is pretty but im catching a ferry to hvar island today because its pretty boring here and i feel my time would be better spent somewhere else. its a port town so its pretty loud and there is a lot of modern influence so its not really what i envisioned when i decided to come to croatia. i have a few recommendations for places to go though and after i feel out hvar town i might head up north and check out some of the more quiet areas before heading over to budapest.