Perfecto Pesto & Hazardous Hiking

This past weekend I went to Cinque Terre (a group of five small towns on the Italian Riviera). You can hike between all the towns or travel by train. My friend Laura and I took an overnight train to the city closest to Cinque Terre and then took the local train to the first town, Riomaggiore. It was beautiful! The city is right on the Ligurian Sea with the gorgeous cliffs and the sea on one side and vibrant green hills on the other.

We got there just as the park office was opening and we bought our trail passes to start hiking. Since it was so early we were nearly the only ones on the trail and we took our time enjoying the view and feeling the fresh morning air from the mountains and sea all around us. It was hard not to stop every couple feet to take a picture because the landscape was amazing. The hike went along the coast on the edge of the cliffs. It was hard to know what to look at because the sea and mountains were beautiful, but we were also surrounded by vegetation ranging from aloe vera plants, cacti, palm trees, and tons of other trees and flowers.

When we got to the next town, Manarola, we stopped for breakfast. Cinque Terre is famous for its pesto and its focaccia bread so I got a chunk of focaccia for breakfast. It was delicious, having just the right amount of crunchiness, tasting slightly sweet and buttery. After our wonderful breakfast we started along the next hike and found a place where you could walk right down to the water. We hiked down the rocks and as we got as close to the waves crashing up against the giant rocks and cliffs as we could before getting wet. The rest of the trail was closed because of it had been raining the past couple days so we headed back to town and took the train to Corniglia, the third town.

Laura convinced me to do the hike between Corniglia and Vernazza which (the longest hike between towns). It began alright, but quickly the path became a little treacherous. Sometimes the path wasn't really a path but just an incline of rocks that you had to climb, or a dirt trail turned to mud without even a railing for the two feet you had before it fell off into a ravine. By the time we were half way up the mountain we were hiking I was totally soaked with sweat and couldn't imagine making it the rest of the way, but the thought of the sea and pesto on the other side kept me going. Even though the hike was way more intense than I thought it would be I'm really glad I did it. When we finally made it over the mountain to Vernazza I was really proud that I had made it, and happy that I'd had a real (even if brief) backpacking experience. In the end the views were amazing and I got to get some delicious pesto for lunch.

We took the train to the last town, Monterosso, and headed for the beach. I got to swim in the sea! The water was perfectly refreshing but not too cold. There was a moment when I stopped and thought "I'm swimming in the sea off the coast of Italy - wow!" After swimming for a little bit I went and laid on the beach and fell asleep to the soothing sound of the waves until it started to rain. We took cover and headed to our hostel for the night.

My toes in the sea

The next day we went back to Vernazza and stopped at a local store and got some extremely fresh pesto, bread, and mozzarella. The pesto was soooooo good! It was really flavorful and so fresh.

We took our picnic lunch to the small beach and sat watching the boats in the bay. Then we went and sat on the giant rocks with our feet in the water enjoying the sun and waves


 and savoring the taste of the most amazing pesto in the world. It was a great end to our trip of fabulous food and amazing scenery.