Cinque Terre is Italian for five lands. These five little towns are beautifully colored and perched on hills right on the coast. They are linked by a seven mile long hiking trail, most of which were unfortunately closed because “the mountain fell” aka there was a rock slide.
James and I did make it down “Lover’s Lane” where we added our own lock to the collection along the trail. When we made it to the second town, we drank cappuccinos and watched the water crash against the rocks.
A train took us to the last town, Monterosso del Mar, since the trails were closed. This town has a little beach that we curled up on until we were ready to take the train back.
We stopped at Il Centro, our grocery store, on the way back to grab some chicken, red sauce, and fresh parmesan. Our side dish: the mac and cheese that James brought me!!!! And thennnn James caught my stomach virus. Needless to say, he didn’t get any sleep that night and literally didn’t leave his bed the whole next day. At least he was sick on the day it poured rain…? And I spent the day studying for my midterms.
On Monday James felt much better. I had my midterm on the Mafia in the morning which went really well! Although James still didn’t have an appetite, I dragged him to this TASTE festival that was in town for the weekend. There was so much food! Breads, olive oils, balsamics, sausages, fish, cheeses, wine, beer, chocolate, etc. You know James didn’t have much of an appetite when he didn’t taste any of the beer… A few hours later though we headed for Il Gatto’s for a family style dinner with some of my friends. After four delicious appetizers, three plates of pasta, and a few glasses of wine, we headed to Bacco for beat the clock before calling it a night.
Tuesday, we started up the Duomo’s 463 steps, and the view from the top was definitely worth the claustrophobic, spiral staircases.
We treated ourselves to gelato from Grom and I headed off to my History of Florence and Wine tasting midterm. My history midterm went pretty well although I wasn’t expecting such a vague essay topic: Please write about the history of Florence from the 14th century until the Medici family gained power… My wine tasting midterm… well it’s wine tasting. We met up with my friends after at The Clubhouse for some soccer and American food- buffalo wings! Although in Europe, ranch dressing does not exist so they didn’t taste quite the same. We hung out at Bigallo for some drinks and then danced at Red Garter. We ended the night with yummy chocolate croissants from the Secret Bakery.
Nutella donuts and cappuccinos were for breakfast on Wednesday before my Italian midterm. We shopped around the San Lorenzo leather markets to look at leather shoes for James and popped into Freddy Doner’s for a kebab. It started to get really windy and stormish after lunch so we stopped and got dark hot chocolate and headed back to the apartment. I took my literature midterm, and I thought my hand was literally going to fall off, while James took a nap. We drank wine on my terrace and hung out with Tay and Rob for a little bit before heading to Keith and Tom’s room. Italy was celebrating its anniversary of unification (150 years) and the Duomo and Piazza della Repubblica were lit up in red, while, and green lights. We danced in the VIP section of Colle and snuck off to another trip to the Secret Bakery.
We slept in Thursday and headed out to get a nutella waffle which are extremely overpriced but you would completely understand if you could smell the deliciousness wafting from the stands. After shopping for souvenirs in the leather markets we put our name down on the 1.5 hour long waiting list for one of Florence’s special trattoria’s, Trattoria Mario. We killed time by going to see the David in the Accademia. Trattoria Mario is only open for lunch, and we had a delicious meal and sat next to a couple from Chile who were interesting to talk to! The whole menu was in Italian so after guessing random dishes we decided everything there must be good! We found James some nice leather shoes and stopped in H&M to find him something green to wear for St. Patrick’s Day! Then we headed back to the apartment to pack up our bags and relax for a little bit until our appetite was back. We ate at Dante’s for dinner for the second time and it was just as good as the first, and we of course stopped and bought gelato for dessert! Then, I wanted to take James to Kikuya to try the Dragoon beer. Though he got a little distracted when we walked past a Lamborghini, it was a great way to start of St. Patty’s. We ended the night with Bacco where we found Keith, Tom, and Matt, andddd the Secret Bakery, as always.
Paris next post!!! Ciao!
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