.Cinque Terre.

After Florence, we took a train through Pisa on our way to La Spezia and Cinque Terre.
In Pisa, we got off the train and some random old Italian lady directed us to the bus which would take us to the tower and also where to buy cheaper bus tickets. So nice!! Quite different from the people in Rome who were just rude. We got to the tower with all our backpacks, and unloaded in the shade of the fountain, taking turns watching them while the others walked around. We chatted with a couple cute Japanese ladies who thought Roz was on a high school trip :( and then an Italian mother and daughter named Daniela and Nicole. Nicole had just taken one year of English in school, so it was pretty fun trying to communicate with them, and then this Brazilian girl started attempting to translate via Portuguese and in the end we had a really lovely conversation. Then we took our stereotypical Pisa tower pictures, hopped on the bus, and continued to La Spezia.
Once there we got directions to our bus stop, and travelled up the mountain to this little village called Biassa. It is really cute...but we were both hungry and tired when we arrived, and the one grocery store was not open, and only one of the two restaurants was open, but we didn't want to pay for eating out because we're cheap. Thankfully, the grocery store decided to open from 6-8:30 that evening and we got some food. Very, very limited selection.
The only way to get to Cinque Terre was on these green buses which ran every few hours...or else walk for a couple hours to get to RioMaggiore. Our first day we walked the first two hikes, and spent some time in Corniglia (the third village) on the rocky beach, saw some naked old people, got a tad sunburnt despite the spf 50 sunscreen, and took the train back at the end of the day. We bought pesto from a grocery store and pretty much it is the best pesto I have tasted in my entire life. SO good. The next day we hiked the last two hikes, starting from Monterosso and heading to Corniglia. BRUTAL. So so so many stairs. Huge stairs. Narrow paths. Intense heat. Amazing view. Totally worth it. We spent a while in Vernazza for lunch trying to avoid the peak sunlight hours, enjoying live music from buskers, and when we finally made it to Corniglia we went down hundreds of more steps (slight exaggeration) and made refreshing contact with the ocean...yay! The last day we just took the trains, spent the day at the beach in Vernazza, and watched the sunset at via dell'amore in RioMaggiore. Quite beautiful.
The last bus to our hostel was at 10:30 every night, but usually we caught the one before that. We watched the first 2 Bourne movies, saw a couch break (slightly scary moment, haha), did some laundry, had some wine, ate in a restaurant overlooking La Spezia, and had showers with see-through doors. Also, if Pompei (did I write about Pompei yet?) is the city with random dogs wandering around, Cinque Terre is full of random cats. Rather strange, but at least they were cute!