Cinque Terra

If you go to Europe, you must go to Italy. If you go to Italy, you must go to Cinque Terra. If you go to Cinque Terra, you must do the gelato crawl.

Friendly locals + incredible views + delicious pizza and gelato = our favorite stop in Europe. Our first experience with Italian pizza wasn't great. We had been delayed and missed our train and were waiting in a hot, crowded train station and were starving. Trent, always wanting to eat in the train station, convinced me to buy the frozen pizzas at the station which we ate inside while dirty pigeons eye-balled us. Italy had not yet wooed us.

We then rode a hot, crowded train to our destination and arrived in the middle of the night. I had booked us a hostel in a quaint, local area, rather than the big city, which created a bit of a problem when we arrived at 10 pm. We found some other worried-looking back packers at the train station and figured out we all had to get to the same place. So we grabbed a taxi together and were suddenly whizzing around corners and mountain bends and 20 minutes later, arrived in what would become our favorite town in Europe. After checking in, the hostel workers recommended a pizza place a short walk away so at about 11 pm, we found ourselves in a tiny pizza parlor with a bunch of locals eating the best pizza we'd ever had. Now Italy had begun to woo us.

Apparently the "thing to do" while back-packing through Europe is a pub-crawl. We weren't into that and created our own version of fun in Cinque Terra. The name means "5 towns" because there are 5 towns built on the coast line of Italy; 5 of the most beautiful, breath-taking towns you'll ever see; 5 towns all serving delicious gelato. So on our first day we took a train to the furthest town. We lounged and swam at this beach:

then had lunch and began our hike. A few things were decided while on the hike:

1) Gelato needs to become more popular in the States.

2) Trent would do the same lame smile in every picture in Italy.

3) Italy is probably the coolest country in Europe.

4) We're not great at following signs.

I know I said I wouldn't post lots of pictures of scenery or buildings but I have to for Cinque Terra. It was just that beautiful. We got our first gelato in the first town and then started hiking:

Note that Trent had not yet decided on his stupid smile face. Don't worry, you will get sick of it soon. Also note that I got two scoops. Yes, I knew that we would be stopping in all 5 towns for gelato but eating that stuff is like eating a sweet cloud of goodness. We made our way to the second town and looking at pictures now, I fear it might have been my face here that inspired Trent's ugliness for the remainder of Italy:

This hike was phenomenal. We'd turn corners and stumble upon towns like this one:

This was the second of the five towns and to get there we had to wind through beautiful hills and colorful, crowded streets.

After people watching and savoring our gelato, we said goodbye to this beautiful town,

and continued on to the third:

There was a pink house in our neighborhood once. All the neighbors talked about it and how tacky it was; it truly was an eyesore on our suburban block. But Italy manages to make pink buildings cool, and yellow buildings, and blue ones too. Plus, I'm not sure why this is, but in Italy even hanging laundry looks cool.

I love this next shot only because of the man in the background. Italy is characterized by so many stereotypes and we met these stereotypes around every bend.

We made it to the fourth town with no issues:

The above picture still makes me laugh, not only because we took ugly to a new level, but because this is where we missed the large sign pointing us in the direction of the fifth town. Instead, we found a small, faded sign that seemed to be an leading us to our destination. We would follow these faded red arrows for an hour. After an hour of climbing up steep ravines, tromping through overgrown pathways, and even awkwardly slipping through people's backyards, we were sweating profusely and realized something was wrong.

Things we probably should have realized:

a) All the towns are built on the coast but we had been hiking away from the coast for the entire time and were not seeing any other people.

b) All the signs we were following were faded and often hidden behind brush.

c) We were in good shape but getting a heck of a workout and had seen overweight loafers talk about doing this hike in flip flops.

Still, we trudged on.

I don't recall the exact moment when we both decided we had messed up but I remember it happening way too late. That moment of realization that you were wrong is a terrible one. And it's especially terrible when you realize that after climbing up steep terrain for an hour, it was all for nought and you now have to climb back down.

So we scurried down the mountain, laughing the whole way at our own stupidity. We found our way back to the fourth town and then saw the giant sign we had originally missed. The hike to the fifth turned out to be a 10 minute stroll along a flat, clearly marked and paved trail. Yes, we turned a 10 minute stroll into an intense, 2 hour hike.

Luckily, we were able to laugh about it. Really, what else can you do? And we made it to our final gelato stop.

Life lessons we learned from this hike:

1) Admitting when you are wrong is painful but the sooner you do it, the better.

2) Gelato makes everything better.

That night we strolled through the quiet, quaint town and returned to our local pizzaria:

While enjoying our delicious dinner,

we were thoroughly entertained by the locals who provided live entertainment which included kids on the mic and a man doing a lively rendition of "Go, Johnny Go."

In every town we stopped in, we found that if we were able to meet the locals, our experience was much richer. Few spoke English but this local group let us sit and observe their lives as they sang and played the guitar and danced. And it was wonderful. We left the pizzaria with full bellies and full spirits and laughed as we passed a bare-chested man speaking loudly on the phone to a man named Luigi. And we laughed again when we passed by a house where a man was singing an opera-style song with gusto. Italy was turning out to be everything we hoped it to be and more.

We spent the next day in the main town and sitting on a beach, resting our tired legs. That night we returned to our spot to soak in more of the local flavor. We were not disappointed.

We met a man named "Bini" who spoke decent English and owned the pizzaria. He joined us for dinner and we had bizarre conversations about America and "Happy Days" and Rock n Roll.

What I remember most about this dinner was "Bini" making us try all different types of pizza. He didn't tell us what they were. Thus, we both had anchovies on our pizza and I almost threw up in my mouth. I had to wait til he looked away and then I spit that nastiness in my purse.

We realized while here that it is definitely the people that make a country. Munich had incredible history and buildings and Zermatt had beautiful scenery, but we hadn't met any locals there. It is our encounters with locals that made cities special. Cinque Terra is incredibly beautiful and the gelato crawl was incredible (minus the 2 hour detour) but I think it holds such a special place in our hearts because of the pizzaria. Because at this pizzaria were able to witness the typical nights of typical people. We were able to slip into their private world and they let us snoop around.

God did some pretty marvelous work when he created Cinque Terra but He did even more miraculous work when he created the hearts and minds of the people who would inhabit the land. We were blown away by the beauty of the five towns but more blown away by the warmth of variety of life we witnessed here.