Pisa and Cinque Terre

Chris’s reaction to his first sight of the leaning tower was one of laughter. I’m always surprised at how well, lean-y, it looks. We had purchased pizza on our way to the tower (as well as seen some ruins of Nero’s baths and ran into a girl from one of our classes) so we ate the pizza in the grass in front of the tower. We walked along to the other side and were trying to take the typical pushing or holding up the tower shots when it began to rain so we got out our raincoats from our bags. Our backpacks were stuffed with many plastic bags holding all our things and several layers, since the weather forecasted rain for both days. We later learned this was all done in vain, but that is something I certainly am not complaining about. Since it was raining we headed into the Duomo. The area closest to the altar is now closed off, which is a pity since the golden mosaic of Jesus is a really beautiful one. I wish I had access to the stairs that went up there, it must be amazing to see the details of it.

When the rain stopped we left to get some gelato and found a place that had really amazing chocolate gelato near the maze of streets with nice shops where we had gotten our pizza earlier. This area is much nicer than other areas of Pisa. We walked around a bit and ended up going outside the large stone wall to look around some more. We came across some old airplanes and a market with African goods before wandering back to the area with the Leaning Tower. We sat in the grass for a while and people watched before heading to get dinner.

We ate in a random park that we came across when we went to peer at a pretty little church we noticed down one of the streets. We played hangman and other games on the paper napkins we had gotten and then walked back along the river, which looked very lovely with the colorful houses as the sun was setting.

The next day we got up early to catch the train to La Spezia and from there to stand in the completely packed train that led to the Cinque Terre towns.

What to say about Cinque Terre?

Chris and I hiked the trail from Monterosso, the last of the five towns, to Vernazza, the most famous of the towns. It is supposedly the most strenuous but most beautiful so we chose that one since it was the views that we were going for. We had planned to also hike from Vernazza to Corniglia but decided when we got to Vernazza that it wasn’t worth rushing off to the next town because we really wanted to explore and enjoy the one we were in before we had to take the long train ride home.

Monterosso was very nice, more of a typical small beach town. I think my favorite view was a really large rock in the ocean with the hills behind it. We actually got lost for a while in Monterosso and rather frustrated because we couldn’t find the trails. We had been told that it was extremely easy to follow but kept worrying because we would climb up stairs only to find it was a convent and have to climb back down before doubling back. It was worrying because we didn’t want to be wasting energy on hiking that wasn’t a part of the actual hike.

The hike wasn’t too strenuous overall but it certainly was on the difficult side, particularly for a tourist attraction. It was much harder for Chris, I’m sure, since he was carrying all our food and two huge bottles of water, as my backpack is smaller. I was only really out of breath once when there was a stretch of “stairs” that went for a really long time. Otherwise, the only other thing that was hard was the fact that on certain parts of the path there was really only enough room for your feet and it was scary to be that close to the edge of something so steep. As not the most graceful of people I was really fearful that I would trip, particularly in these areas or the areas where the stone stairs had become more of a jagged obstacle.

It was fairly crowded so sometimes you would be hiking along in a line of people. I think it would have been a bit nicer to be able to stop at more of the places to enjoy the views or little surprises, like stone bridges covered in vines over the little streams that ran throughout the hike, or vineyards with little stone huts, but since there is little room to maneuver to let people pass you it’s only possible to pull aside at a few points. Nonetheless, the weather was beautiful and hiking along the trail felt really good.

The first sight of Vernazza was amazing. There’s just something so quintessentially charming about it. You get a peek of it around the next big hill you have to hike around so it’s a little bit of motivation. Along the way there were more vineyards and beautiful lemon and orange trees. One garden even had big calla lilies in it, something I was surprised to see. Of course, this whole hike we were given beautiful views of the ocean and hills.

At the end of the hike as Chris and I were taking pictures of Vernazza from above my legs started to shake uncontrollably. Apparently Chris’s were, too, so apparently they had exerted a good bit of energy. It was a bit like that feeling you get after running for a while and when you stop you still feel like you’re running.

We headed down into the town and found ourselves following a little arrow that pointed down a tiny alleyway that led us suddenly into this beautifully open seaside area. There were outdoors restaurants, little shops, and gelaterias that crowded around a big dock with colorful wooden boats and a little beach. It was really beautiful.

Chris got some pizza with pesto on it, as Cinque Terre is famous for their pesto, so I tried a bit of that and it was really good. We also got more gelato, of course. It was really fun to just look around and soak in all the charming aspects of the town. There were random cats (one peering out of a window, one kitten whose owner came out to talk to me when she saw me taking pictures) and dogs staring up at their owners as they ate at the tables outside. Little children chased around the pigeons and one particularly cute little boy was even having his own conversation with the birds. We got more water from one of the outdoor fountains, ran into more people from our school, and came across a little playground that had a giant bear for its trash can. Oh, and we ended up splitting one more very large gelato when we came across a place that sold mint chocolate chip. It was amazing, I have certainly missed that flavor. It’s hard to describe how lovely Vernazza was but I would certainly like to go back and also to explore the other towns.

The train ride home was quite long and we also had a long wait in La Spezia as well as a shorter one in Florence for changing our trains. We tried walking around La Spezia a bit but it wasn’t very nice so we mostly spent our time waiting in the train station. We got home around 11 and were so very grateful to find that there was a bus going to the historic center as we were quite weary at that point, even if the bus driver did try to get us to go back into the station to get tickets (to which Chris responded “and you’ll still be here?” and he then asked if we had change).

In conclusion, it was a very wonderful weekend trip. Pisa may not have very many attractions to see but I think we made it a very pleasant experience. Cinque Terre was really amazing and I’d love to return. I’m so glad we went.

Once again, pictures will have to come later!