La Dolce Vita: Cinque Terre- it sounded like a great idea at the time

ok, it was the morning of our 2nd day in beautiful Cinque Terre. We awoke to the smell of cheap white wine, and ocean salt. I fumble out of bed, get slightly ready (aka put on sneakers and spandex) and head out to check the weather situation. The woman at the foccaria the night before told us that they expected rain and our hike would probably not occur as planned. I will not lie, my tired, exhausted, hungover body would't have been all that upset if I wasn't able to climb to the top of the earth and back down. However, Carly wanted to go so I plugged along- Yes I know I could quite possibly receive the Best Friend of the year award, I have my speech ready ;)
Back to the story- I got up, dressed, and headed out to the train station for info. The woman nicely sold my tickets, said that part of it was closed due to "mudd slides" (red flag) but I bought two tickets, picked up due cappichinos and a breakfast foccia and headed home to pick up Carlita and head back out, or UP should I say.
Let me also preface this story with the fact that over wine yesterday, we met crazy lady number 1 and divorcee number 2. She was a nut job. She graciously warned us that the hike was no joke, but we disregarded her overly tanned, wrinkled, aging 60yr old self and signed up!

Off we go into the hills. Cinque Terre is a connection of 5 villages on the coast of northern Italy. The villages are connected by thousands and thosands of unpaved steps going up and down into the Italian mountains. This trip was no joke! IT was TOUGH! We were winded! The elderly women with their nordic track sticks were passing us up as we huffed and puffed on the side lines of these wobbley, steap, dangerous, HIGH, scary steps.

It was PATHETIC!!! We got our asses kicked but the only thing that made it worth it was the view at the top!! GORGEOUS!! It was worth the huffing and puffing and sweating and nearly slipping off the edge time after time!

After the first village when we felt like we were in the Italian jungle, we met Morgan and Kayla from Colorado and boy did they spice up our trip hahaa they were two girls in their early 20’s that just graduated from school. They were a trip. They were in the midst of a three month best friend adventure before doing grad school and going into the real world. Kinda like the younger version of our trip minus the nice hotels and great clothes. These girls were HILARIOUS. We swapped stories of boys and learned about Carlo Morgan hahaha and a thing called a LELO and how we HAD to get one! They taught us about muscle testing. Yes Muscle testing. Apparently it's a homeopathic thing from colorado that you do to ask answers for things you do not know. As per Kayla you stand with your arms crossed at your chest, like a vampire, and close your eyes, relax and ask the question. If you naturally fall forward it means yes and backwards mean no. She showed us an example to see if Morgan was preggo with Carlo's baby, and thankfully she "is not" hahahaha (thank goodness for the muscle testing because we all just drank 2 liters of wine) wink wink

We hiked the rest of the journey together and stopped and ate lunch and 2 liters later we were all great friends!

on our adventure we also met this FSU man from Jupiter! He apparently thought we were the greatest thing to hit the cinque terre mountains because he blatentley ignored his girlfriend at this side and practically joined our table. GEEZE FSU men hahahaa His mother, also with them, instructed us to do a boat tour to see the towns, and they eventually left. We enjoyed the rest of our wine and continued our HIKE! Bon appitito!!

on our way past the 4th village we met Chris from Canada. He was truly just the cutest lil man we've ever seen!! delightfully sweet- and kind- perhaps from all the universal healthcare- but who knows ; )

Suprisingly enough we made it through all the villages ALIVE well and uninjured. I think Carly was more suprised that I didnt fall off the cliff as i'm not the most study of individuals without a wobbley ass cliff adding to my balance defects.

Ps Wait till I tell Dr Desimone what I've done. He could quite possibly hit me with a crutch. Im not quite sure that 4months post op climbing to the ends of the earth and back were in my allowable activity descriptions. Eh you only live once and I and my knee are intact and safe :)

We caught the ferry out of the last village home- thankful for our new ITALIA jackets because the temperature dropped about 20degrees during our hike and headed home

We packed 4am was coming bright and early for our departure to Munich via Zurich and Milan

<----View from Village numero 2