Cinque Terre brought me to my knees

If you have been following my last few posts, you would have realized that I had spent more than just a few days on the road in Italy. By the time I arrived in Cinque Terre, a good part of my Italian tour would have ended and I was quite relieved. For one, I was totally burnt out from traveling, for two, dirty + crowded + shared toilets, for three, living off supermarket food like bread and frozen ham, I can only survive on these factors for only so long.

We only stayed the night in Pisa and decided not to do the Tower of Pisa again in the morning. Once morning came, we took the train and took off to Cinque Terre. This place was recommended by one of our Spanish classmates and upon researching it, I was initially quite against coming to this place. Hey, I come from Singapore ! Surrounded by some of the best beaches in the world in Malaysia & Thailand. Why come to Italy to go to a beach ?

Boy was I wrong...


Once we arrived, Cinque Terre brought me to my knees. Cinque Terre is actually a coastal area made up for five seaside villages linked together by train. We headed to our hostel first at Manarola.

I made a mistake with the booking and we had no rooms when we arrived. We headed to the only hostel in Cinque Terre to find that it will only open 3 hours later.


Anyway, the hostel was full, a fact that we found out after WAITING FOR 3 DAMN Hours. Luckily, during the 3 hours period, me and my friend were taking turns to look after our bags and explore the village. I found this agency that managed to help us locate a private room in Manarola at hostel prices. At that point of time, it was close to 4-5pm, the sun was setting, we had no place to go to, we were DESPERATE. When they managed to pull off that tiny miracle, I really hugged and thanked them from the bottom of my heart. Loving Cinque Terre already..




The next 2 days, we spent in Cinque Terre chilling out and exploring the five villages. Each village was pretty small and can be covered within 30 mins. We could hike from one village to another. The prices and the food in Cinque Terre were so much cheaper than the other places in Italy I was at. The atmosphere was relaxing. I really left my heart at Cinque Terre. Each night, me and my friend will buy a bottle of wine, drink and chill out under the night sky. We had dinner as well, with fresh mussels, fish and ingredients like pesto locally grown in the region.