che mondo meraviglioso

Last week was Semana Santa, or Holy Week, during which the University of Cádiz was closed, thus providing the perfect opportunity for... a trip to Italy!
So. Saturday I got on a train to Sevilla,

to catch a plane to Pisa, where I stayed the night with 4 or 5 other students from the program. We stayed in a B&B called something like the Welcome Inn. It was really sweet with a garden and a cat (that was dubbed Tripod due to it's lack of one leg...). In the morning we wandered around the city until our train left at 3 for Cinque Terre. We did the tourist thing - the leaning tower pictures, ate gelato, you know...

We stayed in the last town of Cinque Terre, called Monterosso al Mare, the most touristy, least "authentic" of the five. I guess it's probably best that we stayed there, rather than one of the others, because there was a little bit more to do, but the truth is it was one of my least favorite towns.

The first day we decided to hike between the towns, but discovered that the second section of the hike (between Vernazza and Corniglia) was closed due to landslides. So we decided to hike only the first section, after much speculation as to what exactly Rick Steves meant when he described it as "strenuous." Turns out, it was strenuous...



...but well worth the sweat and the dirt. Exhausted after our arrival in Vernazza, we hunted down some focaccia (delicious!) and took a nap on the giant slabs of rock next to the water. Followed by some (also delicious) gelato (side note: best chocolate ever is Kinder Bueno, which can be created with gelato by combining hazelnut and chocolate).

The next day, since that trail was still closed, we took a train to Corniglia to hike from there on. Corniglia is a tiny, tiny town (population 300), which, according to Rick is ideal for "hermits, anarchists...and mountain goats." It's the only town that is not directly by the water. Instead, one has to hike up 377 steps (arranged in 33 flights). Once at the top, we seem to have gone the wrong direction and completely missed the town, but what we did get to see was really nice. From there we hiked to the next town, Manarola, which was one of my favorites. It was less touristy than Monterosso, but still not the least so. After a little lunch, we continued on to Riomaggiore, my very favorite.
While I would not say that it is meant for hermits, it feels the least touristy (I think I need to find a synonym here...)and somehow, despite the fact that it is both the "first" town, as well as the easiest to get to, it had the feeling of being little visited. It also had a pebbly and secluded beach that was really nice.

The next few days, since my hiking pass had expired (sadly, it was only good for 2 days), I wandered around Monterosso and spent a lot of time on the beach. On the side of the rocky cliff that separates the old part from the new part, there's a really odd looking cement building (if you can really call it a building, see below) that apparently was a Nazi bunker. Monterosso was actually destroyed by bombing in WWII. Up in the hills there was a Cappuccin monk's monastery and a cemetery. Apparently, somewhere in the cemetery it is claimed that the 30th of February actually occurred... This unfortunately took me a little while to figure out.Somehow never managed to get very far into the other part of Monterosso until the very last day (no idea why), but since there was very little to occupy my time, I decided to venture deep into the new part. It wasn't really too exciting, until I came to the very end of the town, after passing some playgrounds, more restaurants and souvenir shops... And then I looked up and there was a giant sculpture of a man coming out of the cliff. It looked as though he was holding the cliff away from the water, or something, and reminded me a lot of Atlas.



(And the above is what I saw on my way back...)