Cinque Terre

Cinque Terre was great, we got started at about 11:00 after a slow start. Train came at 10 from right outside our hotel and we arrived around 10:30 then we dillydallied and got some breakfast and such.

The hike started out terrible, there were 50-100 people on the trail at the same time, but the crowds quickly died out once we got to the first slightly rough part. That was right after the second city.

A quick overview of Cinque Terre, there are 5 very small cities connected by a walking path about 9 km in total. The cities are only hold about 500-1000 homes each and are dominated by tourists, although in a less dense fashion than major cities like Florence. Almost everyone hiking the trail or in the towns spoke English. It was bearable, and the views and the hike made it worth it.

Anyhow at the second city we hit our first elevation gain. It was probably about 50m up via stairs. Not that bad, but after that there were a lot less hikers. The views were stunning, I only got a few shots before my camera died though. Eh, Lars got some great panoramas so it will be fine.

A few interesting things happened on the hike. Over the total course of the hike 3 people asked us if we had head about what happened on Saturday (the Husky win over 3rd ranked USC). Apparently news travels fast.

Also when we stopped for lunch at the 4th town we met a lady from Arizona that wanted her son to go to the UW, he went to ASU instead. I had a quick chat with her and then ate lunch. Later when we were trying to hike up to the highest point in the town (only to be stopped by a 1.50 euro entry fee) we met another man with the same accent. It turns out it was a husband and wife traveling as a group. We had some fun with him as we told him where his son went to college and about his wife's job :). Reminds me of the aussie girls we met yesterday.

That about concludes the interesting parts of the day. We hiked from the 4th to the 5th village, which was balls to the wall hard, probably 100m elevation gain in less than 750m of walking distance. Lots of stairs. It ranks fairly high up there in difficult hikes for me. Thankfully it was all over in like 15 min and we had a nice hike along the mountains before descending into the final town and passing out on the beach for about an hour.

Coming back was uneventful. We yet again did not have to show or check off our eurorail passes. For so many good people in Europe there are a few bad ones as well. We were the bad ones today and didn't mark the day as used. It saved us a grand total of 2 euro. We got back around 6 and went out for dinner after visiting an Internet cafe around 7. We just asked a local where a good reastraunt was and he pointed to one about 50m away. It was great Italian food. I had chicken and mushrooms and Lars and Jeff both had great Pasta. It cost us a grand total of 24 euro. God I love non-tourist areas.

Anyhow that concludes the day. Tomorrow were going to Naples for the night. Our train there is a direct train leaving at 5:45 am. Were getting up at 5:00 should be fun. Thankfully we get in at 12:00. It should give us plenty of time to explore Naples. I'm really excited about Naples and the outlying areas. I really want to summit Mt. Vesuvius. The hostel were staying at in Naples also looks kind of sketch, but you can't pass up $15 a night. I might try to convince Lars and Jeff to even stay one more night so we can go see a few more natural areas around Naples. I've been reading about a few of them and they look amazing. I'm also a bit touristed out. I kind of just want to do some hikes. I'm having trouble dealing with the big tourist groups in cities more and more and don't know if I can do 3 days in Rome without killing someone.

It really bothers me when we walk into an area and hear more English than the native language. I also can't differentiate between different types of Europeans so its very hard to tell if were dealing with locals or just another Australian tourist. I think I've mentioned it before, but I want to see how people live, not just what they built 1000 years ago. Thats kind of why I'm excited about Pompeii tomorrow or the next day.

I'll close with the observation that I'm really excited to get back to Seattle and to school. I'm even more excited to start working the the lab again and can't wait to apply to the Japanese study abroad program. Not understanding the culture or being able to speak the language is starting to get to me just a bit.

Anyhow home in 6 or 7 days I'm excited.