We took our first trip out of the country to Parco Nazionale delle Cinque Terre, Italy. This is a national park on the west coast of Italy, just north of Pisa. This area is made up of five towns along the coast, which all have hiking trails from one to the next. Saturday morning we woke up knowing that it was going to be difficult traveling to London Stansted Airport due to all of the flooding. We did not realize, until waiting in the train station for over an hour due to delayed and cancelled trains, that we actually might not make it to Italy. A train finally showed up that was headed to London Paddington and crowds of people piled on. Three train rides and a few hours later, we made it to the airport. Our flight was an hour delayed because of the wind and we actually ended up being unable to land in our original destination of Genova, Italy. The plane landed in Pisa instead and nobody complained or questioned the fact that they were hours from their destination… it was apparently just normal. We were actually happy landing in Pisa, which was our original plan but ended up being too expensive. We hopped on a bus to the train station and found the train to La Spezia, a larger town on the southern border of Cinque Terre. Finally, one more train later, we made it to our final destination: Riomaggiore. Riomaggiore is built in a valley and there is one main road and all you need to know is it goes straight up. We walked up this road until we found our cozy little hotel where we would be staying for the next two nights. We were both exhausted after 12 hours of travel, but had one thing on our minds: Italian pizza.

Sunday morning we explored Riomaggiore. The ocean was gorgeous and bright blue and we were fortunate enough to have a sunny day. We were actually able to wear shorts and t-shirts, which we were not prepared for, but it made us both very happy! We hiked along the large rocky cliff formations and climbed on several boulders in the middle of the water. It was beautiful looking back at the town layered with tall, colored houses upon old stone churches. There is a normal hiking trail along the coast between each town, but these trails were all closed. Up the mountain we went. See our pictures for how high we climbed and the lack of structure/safety along the trails. We loved it!

We arrived in Manarola, a town that we actually could not even see from our side of the mountain in Riomaggiore. We enjoyed lunch at a Trattoria where we enjoyed fresh baked bread and delicious local olive oil topped with fresh Italian parmesan cheese. We had pasta with locally harvested clams and heaps of fresh vegetables. The Italian's really know how to do it up! We couldn't leave the town without dessert, so of course we tried the gelato. Really, nothing can compare to this sweet scoop of heaven. We wandered around Manarola, climbed on the rocks, and enjoyed the sun while playing in the water!

Monday we left from Riomaggiore with all of our gear and hiked up the mountain and back down to Manarola, only to go back up the mountain on the other side and over a ways to Corniglia. Along our journey, we passed through a town called Volastra that is on top of one of the mountains. We needed water, so we stopped at the local market only to find fresh baked bread and a selection of cheese. We took advantage of this Italian delicacy while sitting on a picnic table overlooking the ocean. After walking through the beautiful, ancient church, we continued onwards and upwards on a very narrow, steep, and slightly frightening trail.

Corniglia is the only town of the five in Cinque Terre that is not accessible to the water. The whole town is located on a huge cliff. We ate a Panini lunch at Bar Nunzio and enjoyed Cinque Terre wine. You can see from our pictures that the mountain sides are covered in grape vines and olive groves.

Due to landslides, we were forced to take the train from Corniglia to our final destination: Vernazza. Most of the roads in Cinque Terre are really just sets of stairs and cars are not allowed past a certain point. Finding our room was a bit difficult but after winding upwards, we found our beautiful room that had a balcony overlooking the ocean. We took advantage of the balcony and watched the sun set and the stars beginning to appear one by one. We could not ask for a clearer night!

We conquered Italy and have mastered most forms of travel over the past four days: 10 trains, 2 planes, 1 bus ride, and 89,100 steps later, we arrived back in Reading. So we are not to bore you, here is a list of our top takeaways from Italia:

*Always choose the upper path. We were fortunate that the coastal paths were closed and we had to hike up the mountains because the view was unforgettable.

*Look up the word toilet, so you do not have to explain with hand motions

*We are very happy that we know Spanish, otherwise we may not have gotten through this trip… towards the end we actually felt pretty confident asking people questions in "Spanlian"… Spanish/Italian combo that we made up

*Many pictures have a track up & down the mountain where carts with people and grapes from the vines up in the mountains travel on. It looks like a really scary and insane rollercoaster.

*Sciacchetrà is a local wine/liquor mix that was FANTASTIC! It was more of a dessert wine and was served with almond cake. Strong & sweet.

*Italian food is the bombdiggity! We were fortunate enough to walk it off each day ;)