The 5th Busy and Beautiful Weekend in Cinque Terre, Pisa and Lucca

It is amazing how fast time has flown by! We have only three weeks left and that feels weird, but we are loving our time here in Italy. We have done so much and still have so much to do. We had had so much fun and have enjoyed spending this time in Italy together as husband and wife. This week was probably our most busy week and weekend so far. On Wednesday we went out to dinner with a bunch of our friends in the Oca (Goose) contrada.They won the last Palio on July 2nd. It was really fun to enjoy getting to know and hanging out with Italians. We ate a lot of food, and were able to tour the trophies that the Oca Contrada won during different Palios. It was a really neat experience.

The street lights in the Oca Contrada

Then came our weekend trip...and a bit of a fiasco with travel plans. We were planning on getting out to Cinque Terre (on the Italian Riviera) on Friday night but our trip was postponed due to a national train strike...we are in Italy afterall. So thankfully Matt speaks Italian and was able to call the place we were staying and get our reservation changed to Saturday. That morning we went out to Cinque Terre. We were both so excited to go hiking and explore the coastline. We then decided on Sunday on our way home to stop in Pisa and Luca.

The View from our Room in Riomaggiore

We took the train from Siena to Cinque Terre. We stayed in a cute little apartment in Riomaggiore. It was a very cute little town with only a few restaurants, shops and is the farthest south of the five cities. When we arrived we quickly unpacked out workout clothes and set out to hike the trains in between all of the five cities. We took the train to the northern most city called Montorosso and began hiking from town to town working our way south back to Riomaggiore. We decided to do this because we would do the hardest hikes when our legs were the most rested. The first hike took us from Montorosso to Vernazza. Montorosso is the biggest city and has the biggest beach. It is beautiful but a little more overwhelming than the other cities.Vernazza was probably our favorite city. It was beautiful and small. It had a quaint beach. From Vernazza  we hiked through grape vineyards and olive groves perched on the steep hillside to Corniglia, which is the smallest town. It had only one gelato shop. The best part of Corniglia was the amazing honey gelato. They are known for having amazing honey and their gelato made of honey is very good. The hike from Corniglia to Manarola was closed because there was a landslide. We took the train from Corniglia to Manarola and then walked from Manarola to Riomaggiore. That short walk is known as the Via Dell'Amore (the street of love). It was filled with love notes and locks on which couples had written their names and then locked them on the fence. The hikes were great. They were gorgeous! The coastline reminded us a bit of Kauai...just more Italianized. It was so much fun to explore each cute city together and to have time to enjoy the beautiful scenery and the great hikes. When we got back to Riomaggiore that night we went and got dinner right away (we were hungry after a day of hiking). Matt got a clam and pesto pasta, and the noodles were made from chestnut flower. It was a local dish and very good! I had a baked fish which was also amazing! It was a very busy day and we had a ton of fun. 

 The next day when we woke up we spent the morning in Cinque Terre on the beach and then headed off to Pisa by 11. We only stopped for a short while in Pisa because we had heard from many sources that the only thing worth seeing is the tower the duomo and the baptistery. They were all really pretty but it was definitely not the nicest city we had been to so far in Italy. 

After we went to Pisa we went to Lucca and it was beautiful. Lucca is located in Tuscany. It is known for its massive walls that encircle the city and you can see why. There are beautiful walls that that have parks and trails all along the top of them.  Many people run, ride bikes, and walk around the top of the walls. There are parks and trees located randomly throughout the walls. Walking around the walls was really a fun experience. Lucca also had some beautiful Catholic churches. It was so much fun. We also found a yummy sandwich place that I loved...and we went back twice because the sandwiches were just so good! Our favorite was the soft goat cheese and sundried tomato sandwich. They were delicious. Lucca was a beautiful city and certainly worth the afternoon that we spent in it.

It was a very busy weekend and we saw a lot. It was a lot of fun. It felt like a very nice vacation in a very beautiful place! We are excited to go down to Sicily this next weekend (well really the weekend and a few days around it too) where Matt served his mission. Until the next post!