After waking up late because we slept in, we took the train from Riomaggiore to Vernazza, a short 10 minute ride or so. The pizza the night before was so good and so cheap that we decided to have two more before we got started.

The reviews we’d read about the hike from Vernazza to Monterosso were absolutely true. That was one beast of a hike. The trail twisted up and down and up and down the hillside, seemingly needlessly (but I enjoyed it, it made it interesting!) and the path was so narrow that when someone came from the opposite direction, it was all one could do to get out of the way and keep from bumping them off the path and onto the cliffs and water below. As usual, the scenery was spectacular, making it impossible to take a bad picture. We finally got to Monterosso, which had the only sand beach out of the five cities (the rest were rock beaches that had been smoothed out by the Sea). I got scorched (sunburnt) the day before and was concerned about having to carry around my having pack being sunburnt so Paige and Kali spent a few hours in the water while I wandered the town and tried to catch up on my journal of the trip. We met at a predetermined meeting place/time and went to the grocery store so I could try my hand at cooking “real” Italian pasta back at Mama Rosa’s.

The pasta was pretty good but was no match for Diego’s creation of a few days prior. We did get a chance to talk a set of brothers from Portland, Oregon who were staying in one of the other rooms in the house and backpacking together. After a fruitless attempt at locating some beer for a card game, we decided to hit the sack.

Sleeping on a rock path wasn’t nearly as bad as it sounds; I felt great the next morning. Of course it would be hard not to feel great, for when I opened my eyes, I was looking out over sun-kissed sapphire blue water and some of the most amazing scenery I’d ever seen.

Paige, Kali, and I ventured into town and soon were approached by a woman renting out a room in her house for EU40 per night. Mama Rosa, as she called herself in very broken english, took us up the side of the cliff via elevator and showed us the room. We told her that we would be delighted to stay for two nights, so the price was a mere EU80. Split three ways, we felt this to be quite the bargain. Of course, we shared a bathroom and a kitchen with the inhabitants of two other rooms but it turned out to not be a problem at all.

Cinque Terre is an Italian national park and as such, a nature trail was constructed by the government that linked the five towns. Residents of Cinque Terre had taken extreme care in the past to prevent the area from becoming an over-commercialized tourist spot so there were no hotels, no McDonald’s, no chains whatsoever. I think that definitely added to the mystique. We began the hike from Riomaggiore to Manarola via the “Via Dell’Amore”, the Lover’s Walk. The path, elevated and inset in the cliffs, winds along the coastline and proved to be a much easier hike than we expected. In fact, it wasn’t much of a hike at all because the paved walkway was crowded with tourists – not quite what we were hoping for. We pressed on and continued the hike from Manarola to Corniglia, which became slightly more difficult and slightly less populated, but still a far cry from the hiking we were anticipating doing (although the pathway was no longer paved). A set of stairs led up the cliff from the walkway and into Corniglia; however, a passway to the famous Guavano Beach (a nude beach) was also at the end of the walkway and just before the steps. We decided to make our way to the nude beach before continuing on. I can still honestly (and somewhat ashamedly because when in Italy…) say that I’ve never been in the Mediterranean Sea nude. To not implicate anyone else, I’ll go ahead and fast forward to the steps. Three hundred and sixty eight of them. Ugh. Up the steps we went, though. We pressed onward to Vernazza, the fourth of the five cities. By this time, the path was much less populated and winded its way across the hillside. This was more like what we were expecting. It was much more of a workout than the previous paths, hence the reason not as many people were on it. However, we got some great views of the area as we stopped to catch our breath periodically on the hike.

When we arrived in Vernazza, we were more than ready for dinner as we hadn’t eaten much of a breakfast while in Riomaggiore. The pizza in Italy is extremely cheap. And extremely good. We devoured two of them and assessed our situation. The hike from Vernazza, the fourth town, to Monterosso, the fifth town, was supposed to be the hardest of them all. Since the sun was setting, we decided to enjoy dinner, have a few beers, enjoy the sunset, and then pack it in for the night.

Having only allotted ourselves one evening and a few hours during the day to see Florence, we missed out on quite a bit. Of course, we were able to walk around and see some of the more famous sites such as The Duomo at the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore (the dome for which Brunelleschi became famous), Ghiberti’s “Gates of Paradise”, Campanile (the bell tower next to The Duomo), and several well-known squares in the city. Florence had a different feel than Rome…it was almost as if one could feel the old money of the Medici family while walking around in the city.

We also took time to enjoy a Leonardo da Vinci exhibit that showcased some 40 or so of his inventions. Models were built of each invention and about half of these were interactive so we were actually able to put them to use and see how they worked. Many different types of pulleys for dragging or hoisting weight were there, several different military concepts (such as the tank and various weaponry) were on display, an early version of the car, a parachute, a rotisserie cooker, bicycle, ball bearings, and of course, the flying machine were all on display. Tribute was also paid to his study of human anatomy, though not much attention was paid to his work as an artist.

Anyway, after getting a taste of Florence, we caught the train to Pisa. By all accounts, there isn’t much to see or do in Pisa other than the Campo dei Miracoli, a walled part of the city that contains the Leaning Tower, the Bapistry of St. John (the cathedral), the Camposanto, and the old city wall. As far as “touristy” things go, I would tend to agree (although Pisa would be a nice, quiet little town to spend a few days in if one wanted to get away from the bigger cities). We ate dinner, took the obligatory “push down the Tower” picture, and after learning it cost EU15 just to go up in the Tower, made our way back to the train station. EU15 – outrageous! However, I suppose I did right by the Business School by putting forth a suggestion as to why it made sense for their cost structure to be shaped in such a way. After a few hours in Pisa, we were on our way.

Our next destination was Cinque Terre, a string of five towns built into cliffsides along the Italian Riviera. The goal was to get there before dark and find a place to sleep on the beach. We got off the train at the first town, Riomaggiore, but to our disappointment, were unable to locate a beach. However, we did find a walkpath and followed it along the edge of a cliff until it stopped. This was to be the “campsite”. It was very dark so we couldn’t look out over the Mediterranean Sea but setting up campsite (which was comprised of a few sheets) while drinking a bottle of wine, looking into a clear, star-filled sky, and listening to the waves crash against the rocks below was an amazing experience that I wouldn’t trade for the world.

The train ride from Rome to Florence was a short one – maybe an hour or hour and a half. After getting off at the wrong train station and being lost without a map in Florence for a while, we got directions to the correct train stop we were supposed to get off at and then found our hostel. By the time we’d reached the hostel and unloaded our bags, it was about 19:00.

Florence, capital of Tuscany, is an amazingly beautiful city of about 956,000 set on the Arno River and at the foot of the Apennines Mountains. It’s highly reguarded as the main Renaissance city and was once the capital of the Kingdom of Italy. As we walked across a bridge over the Arno River and to a gellato shop, we admired the beauty of the bridges and the skyline with the mountains and a setting sun in the background. I had heard several people rave about the gellato in Italy and in retrospect, Florence is the gellato capital of the world as far as I’m concerned. Gellato is a sort of ice cream-yogurt type mix and is to Europeans what ice cream is to Americans – it’s even often served in cones. I got some sort of cake-flavored gellato and it was one of the most delicious things I’ve ever had. That is, until I tried caramel creme later that night (I’m a caramel fiend, so I was a bit biased). Anyway, we walked around the city and admired its beauty at night while enjoying a bottle of wine and sitting along the river and then packed it in for the night.

Having heard about the terribly long lines at Vatican City, we decided to be proactive and get to Vatican City before 9:00 in the morning (this is quite early for traveling college students). Unfortunately, several hundred people were quite a bit more proactive than we were. The line to get into Vatican City was so long that it literally took a good ten or fifteen minutes to walk the length of it. We were told to expect approximately a two and a half hour wait and that the gates wouldn’t even open until 10:00. It didn’t take long standing in the already sweltering heat for us to decide that someone should probably get breakfast and some sort liquid for us to share. Once the Vatican opened, the line moved with surprising speed and we were admitted in seemingly no time at all.

We followed the crowd to the Sistine Chapel, famous for its architecture (which was designed to evoke Soloman’s Temple of the Old Testament), its purpose as a site of papal importance, and of course, the frescos and decorations that were done by some of the most famous Renaissance artists. As I walked through the hallways, I was stunned first by the fact that the ceilings, walls, and floors were absolutely covered with scenes depicting various Biblical events and secondly by the detail and precision with which the artists painted. I couldn’t imagine being upside down on a scaffold and painting an arched ceiling to perfection. Room after room, hallway after hallway were covered with paintings that seemed to come alive as I walked in awe. As you might imagine, the place was packed and I found it difficult to be able to stand and stare at a painting without feeling like I was in someone’s way. I’m certainly not an art connoisseur or art buff but it would’ve been nice to be able to go in one night alone and spend the entire night admiring the artists’ work. The most densely populated room of them all was of course the chapel itself. Michelangelo was commissioned to paint the vault, which took him four years to complete. The walkways of the chapel were dimly lit thus it was difficult to take pictures; pictures and video of any kind were altogether forbidden in the actual chapel, though people took them anyway (much to the dismay of the individuals whose job was to try and prevent people from taking pictures).

After the Sistine Chapel we made the short walk to Saint Peter’s Basilica, which was an absolutely gigantic structure capable of holding over 60,000 people. Much of the marble in St. Peter’s Basilica was carted over from the Colosseum, which was badly damaged. We saw one of the most famous sculptures in the world, Michelangelo’s Pieta. Other ornate and impressive sculptures of past popes lined the walls. It would’ve been nice to know Latin to be able to read some of the insignia on the walls and ceiling but I did find one cool sign that had the names and dates of all the popes of the past.

We exited the church and walked through Saint Peter’s square and then out of Vatican City. Tired from all the walking, we walked over to the Mausoleum of Hadrian and napped on a curb for an hour or two. Having spent much of the day in Vatican City, we first went to Termini to buy our train tickets to Florence for the next day and then went back to Riccardo’s to meet him for dinner (we’d previously agreed upon a time to meet). We were originally going to go out to eat but his friend, Diego, wanted to show me how to cook “real” Italian spaghetti. I’ve given it a shot since and it’s still a work in progress. Diego shared some chocolate that he’d brought with him from Sicily. He had kept it in his freezer and when he opened the pack, the sugar crystals were clearly discernable from the chocolate…suffice it to say, this was far and away the best chocolate I’ve ever had in my life.

To cap the night, Riccardo and Diego drove us to the center of Rome. We grabbed a few beers, walked past the Pantheon, and arrived at the Trevi Fountain. When Paige and I had visited a few days ago, there were so many people that it was difficult to move; however, at night, there were only a few people there to drink a beer and listen to the water. Two guys who were there decided that it would be fun to mess with the security guards who were on guard by swimming in the fountain, since it was forbidden. One jumped in fully clothed and swam around for five minutes or so. The other stripped down to his boxer briefs but never could get up the guile to jump in. The guards, who probably see this every night, calmly walked over and confiscated the clothes of the guy in his boxers and patiently waited for the other individual to emerge from the fountain. Everyone there (except the guards, of course) got a pretty good laugh out of this. When we left, the guards were still talking to the two gentlemen (one of whom was still in his boxer briefs since his clothes had been confiscated) but according to Riccardo, they wouldn’t be in any serious trouble.

Paige and I have agreed to basically split the blogging of our backpacking trip so I’ll take it from here on out, though I’m sure she’ll have some much-needed injections (my memory is pretty terrible).

On August 13th, we picked Kali up from the airport and, after dropping her luggage off at Riccardo’s, made our way to the Colosseum. We got a tip in Barcelona from a girl from Vancouver about how to bypass the 45 minute to an hour wait for entry into the Colosseum. There is a park of ruins opposite the Colosseum called Foro Romano…we bought tickets for this park (at one of the ruins, the Palatino) that also granted us entry into the Colosseum. Sure enough, we were able to walk directly past hundreds of people and straight in.

“Il Colosseo” was every bit as incredible as I had always dreamed it would be. Something about looking directly into the past of one of the most dominant civilizations of all-time is a pretty awe-inspiring thing. I tried to picture what the atmosphere would have been like 2000 years ago for someone outside of Rome when marble, some of which still remained, lined the walls and walkways. I’m sure walking through the corridors, one’s nostril’s would’ve been filled with the musty smell of 50,000 sweating under the burning Mediterranian sun as the racious crowd roared in approval at whatever spectacle was being displayed in the center of the arena. Maybe the putrid smell of the hypogeum (the two-level subterranean network of tunnels beneath the floor of the arena where animals and prisoners were kept) would seep through cracks in the marble and the screams of those slain would pierce one’s eardrums. Oh, to be a time traveller.

After the Colosseum, we made our way through the Palatino and into Foro Romano, a large archeological-looking site where dozens of ruins stood or laid. Walking through Foro Romano was spectacular in its own right as it offered a glimpse into the majesty that was Rome. I just could not imagine being from out in the countryside, having never seen anything larger than a two story farmhouse, and stepping into the streets of Rome – it had to be overwhelming. In Foro Romano we saw, among other things, the Arco di Settimio Severo, the Basilica di Massenzio, Colonna di Foca, the Arco di Tito, and the Casa dei Vestalli. What a day.

Finally, we ended the day by going back to Riccardo’s house where he had, as he’d done the night before, prepared a traditional two-course Italian meal complete with wines from various regions in Italy. I can’t put into words how amazing Riccardo was (both as a cook and as a host) and how excited he was to help us experience and learn about his culture. We ended the night with a delicious cup of coffee and rested up for the next day.