Cinque Terre: The northern coast

The group of about half of us on our guided tour ^^

One of the 29843293 stunning views I saw this weekend...

This past weekend I was fortunate enough to visit the northwest coast of Italy in an area called Cinque Terre. This trip was the one trip we got to go on with my program IES. But on Thursday night before we left for this vacation, we all partied and went to a disco-tech in Testaccio called "Coyote" the problem was we got there kind of early and when we got there, to be completely honest, the place was DEAD. In a matter of no time it turned into one of the best nights I have had here in Rome yet. We danced and partied all night with a huge group of 20+ of us and the local Italians along with students from other programs such as John Cabut University. Friday morning, I woke up around 8:30 went for a run and scrambled to pack. We had to be at Termini by 11:30 a.m. We took the tram to bus "64" which got us to termini by 11:15. Pat, Eric, and I grabbed Mr. Panini while most of the others had McDonalds.We then took our two and a half hour train ride to La Spezia which is a local town near the region of Cinque Terre. We got in and walked to our hotel which was called "my one hotel" and finally got our room assignments, luckily I was roomed with my buddy Grant from Connecticut. After that the boys and I walked around what seemed to be an abandoned ghost town but then again it was "siesta" when everyone takes there afternoon naps. I grabbed a little piece of pizza bread because I was starving and then we went and sat up on some rooftop and enjoyed a local beverage on top of an awesome restaurant. The weather did not look to promising for the upcoming weekend. We had to be showered and in the hotel lobby by 8:00 p.m. for dinner. We attended dinner at a awesome restaurant called "Antica Trattoria Sevieri " where we had an outstanding meal. First they served us bread (wheat and cheese), noodles with pesto, rice and cheese with asparagus, beef wellington with salad, and then a coffee/amerreto dessert. The dinner was ridiculous. After that everyone was so exhausted that we just went to bed considering we had a 7:30 a.m. wake up call. All the hotels in Italy usually have breakfast available and free for our pleasure when we stay at the hotels with a variety of jellies, croissants, cereal, and juices. I even had my first espresso which I did not really care for. After breakfast at nine in the morning we met our guides of Cinque Terre, ours was awesome, her name was Veronica and she was a native of this sacred place. We took the hike through Riomaggiore-Manarola-Cornigilia-Vernazza but the problem was the rain the night before stopped us from hiking some places the guide wanted us too. This place was similar to Capri but nothing like I have ever seen before. Hiking was intense but definitely worth the views. In the middle of the tour we stopped at the Pesto capital of the world and had pizza with pesto sauce on it, unreal as expected and not too expensive. At the end of the tour we took a boat cruise back along the coastline while getting soaked by salt water from the Mediterranean. The views I saw on this day are definitely embedded in my memory for the rest of my life and I would love to go back sometime in the future and show everyone I can. Once again we got back to our hotel, actually before that we went on a search for the "Supermercado" to get some vino before dinner which we did. After we showered and got dressed we went up to Sarah and Elisa's room to hang with everyone because they had an outstanding balcony! We met for dinner @ 8:00 p.m. again in the lobby and walked over to "Ristorante da Duccio" where we snuck a couple bottles of wine in and drank them because since this was IES sponsored they did not really encourage drinking. We only had three courses this time, the first was a meat ravioli followed by veil and potato wedges, and then a creme dessert. We hung out down in Jimmy's room all night and talked with everyone for hours, some people went out but the town is not like what we are used to in ROMA.

Sunday morning we woke up at 7:30 am again and had breakfast but I slept through the wake up call and was rushed to eat. And then we walked to the waterfront with our bags and boarded our bus home. On the way home we stopped at Ca Lunae Winery and got a tour of the winery and had a wine and cheese tasting. Along with a liquor and jelly tasting. This was one of the coolest things I have ever seen! Some people bought wine and pesto but I resisted as I am trying to budget as good as possible, which may I add is IMPOSSIBLE. After the wine tasting we took an hour bus ride and arrived at a traditional Sunday lunch called "Pranzo" where I ate the biggest lunch of my life. First we had a type of pig meat with a broccoli and cheese bread, pesto lasagna, mushroom ravioli, beef and potatoes, and ice cream/amerreto desert. It was so filling but so good, along with some rosso vino and aqua minerale. Everyone was completely stuffed so we passed out for a solid two hours in the bus on the ride home. Until the bus driver stopped at a rest stop and everyone got out to stretch then we had another solid two hour bus ride left to Rome, where I shared an iPod with Sarah and we tried to sleep but it was pretty unsuccessful. We finally arrived back in Rome around 8:00 p.m. Pat, Eric, Jimmy, Gina, and Alex walked home together and hopped on the train. Jimmy and the girls stopping at VIP pizza and then we parted ways.

I have a long week ahead of school and running but can't wait for this weekend because Thursday night @ 8:00 p.m. we leave for a 12 hour bus ride to Oktoberfest!!!! Check it out: ( http://www.oktoberfesta.it/?gclid=CLm-jrH0paQCFQ8-Zgod0lbC5g )

Miss and love you all --- Kev