5 Lands, 1 Day

Today our group was visiting the Cinque Terre or "Five Lands" which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site on the coast near the French border. They are 5 little towns that are perched atop the cliffs that descend dramatically into the water. Many people hike between them, but we were going by boat.

Before we reached the Cinque Terre however it was necessary to get to La Spezia where we would be catching the ferry from.

We left Florence in the morning and as I was waiting for the elevator on our floor I overheard a guy from our tour having a very loud conversation with his travel buddy. We was talking about having just gotten in (remember we had been at a nightclub the night before) and being furious about something. When we got on the bus the story slowly trickled through the ranks and it turned out this guys had spent the morning in a Police hold after being found in a room in a different hotel the night before, completely out of it and with no apparent memory of how he managed to get in there. His theory was that he had his drinker spiked at some point throughout the night, as he said he couldn't even remember leaving the group dinner.

I'm not sure if I completely buy this story, since I thought that when you get spiked it's obvious to people around and you become low functioning, especially if it's a drug with an amnestic effect. But hey, they got rufied in The Hangover and they still managed to do some pretty crazy stuff. And if there is anything we have learnt from movies it's they are 100% accurate 100% of the time.

The rest of the day was less eventful. There was, however, some excitement in the form of a crazy photo competition when we stopped to see the Tower of Pisa. Shereen and I decided she should get her Harry Potter mask out, and I'm not sure what I found funnier: Shereen standing on a bollard, wearing a Harry Potter mask, pointing a Mc Donald's straw like a wand; or the fact that when we showed Vinny the photo he couldn't even tell the difference between Daniel Radcliffe's face and Shereen's.

/Kayla and Paul's attempt

We didn't win though, Jake and Brian had the "craziest" photo- them doing muscle men poses in front of the tower, wearing nothing but tiny Italian swimming trunks.

The boat ride from La Spezia to Monterosso (the furthest of the 5 towns, where we would be spending the afternoon) was really beautiful. We saw all the towns from the water and the ride was very smooth. When we arrived in Monterosso Kayla, Paul, Shereen and I headed straight for the nearest free beach, which with our luck turned out to be the furthest beach in the whole town. But it was a beautiful walk and we had the opportunity to try some local focaccia from two different shops on the way thanks to Kayla who can't go more than 5 minutes without eating.

After a beautiful swim next to this amazing house that was complete with a statue that looked like it was holding up the hill, we were all hungry (even Kayla again), so we found a restaurant overlooking the beach for dinner.

/Our new friends Kayla and Paul

Shereen and I shared two dishes: a plate of pesto pasta and a plate of marinated octopus and boiled potatoes. After a quick stop at a gelateria for some mint-choc-chip, the whole group boarded the train back to La Spezia where we spent the night.

The next day we headed to Milan. Read about it in my next post. Xx