Let's get lost at sea, where they will never find us..

Cinque Terre - the five beautiful beach towns that line the coast of Liguria. 

This weekend I had the pleasure of enjoying Cinque Terre along with the small town at the end of the five towns, Levanto. Levanto was the absolutely wonderful and perfectly small enough for all of us. We even had

gorgeous apartments that allowed us to make breakfast in the morning, which was perfect for all us Americans :P.

Moving on, the day after we arrived, a big group of people went on to get breakfast and go on the hike. As much as I wanted to hike, after our failed boat ride to Capri I decided I wanted to really try and see the towns this time around. So we all had our breakfast (I finally got to have cereal, which I surprisingly missed!) and took our time before heading out to the five lands! 

The first few were definitely my favorites. I really loved Riomaggiore, it was such a cute little town with pretty houses on cliffs and even a cute dock to match. I could be wrong, but it also felt like the biggest. Manarola was close in size and was pretty enjoyable as well. Unfortunately, the trains didn't run as often as I thought they did, nor were the train schedules easy to figure out. Because of that once we got to Corniglia and

realized it was about 200 steps to get to the town... We took a quick picture by a sign and decided to board the next train to Vernazza. In Vernazza we had a lot of free time so we decided to lay out by some rocks and soak in some of the beautiful sun since it was the summer solstice, after all. Finally, we made it to the last town, Monterosso, but we were so tired we weren't able to fully enjoy the beach that the town practically was. We grabbed some gelato and called it a day. We did some other things later that night, but that's a different story..

All in all, I really enjoyed Cinque Terre and getting to experience the beach life and the unique yet similar characteristics of each town. However, most of all, Cinque Terre taught me how much Italy truly has to offer. I have a friend who has been studying in Costa Rica and majority of her pictures have been at a beach, or a waterfall, or some body of water and I'll admit, I was jealous of how seemingly vacation-y her study abroad was. But the beach towns of Cinque Terre made me realize that Italy has those beautiful vaction-y spots along with so much rich history and agriculture to offer along with it. Not many places are able to pull off so many amazing things in one place. I mean, the fact that Italy has a huge list of protected areas on UNESCO should prove a point as well. I am definitely beyond ecstatic that I have been able to spend the last four weeks here and this last week will definitely be a hard one, but I'm looking forward to making the most of it.

With that, I'll leave a quote that I feel really explains how I've learned to appreciate Italy..

"We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm, and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open." 

- Jawaharial Nehru