Allison's Wonderland

Jess and I had high hopes as to waking up early and making a big breakfast. Did that happen? No. Although, we did wake up pretty early in order to have an early start to the day. We left the house at 9 and headed to the market square of Sestri. This place was packed with vendors all over the place. I'm kicking myself for not buying this sweet scarf for only 3 Euros. I did however get two bracelets and a turquoise necklace for only 20 Euros. After the guy haggled the price down he asked me where I was from. I answered with Stati Uniti and he just rolled his eyes. I think he was mad he didn't charge me more after the fact. Whoopsy!



After our stroll through the market we headed to grab a cup of Joe. The coffee here in Liguaria is also out of this world. I got this awesome Niccolato which had Nutella, whipped cream and a biscotti on top. SO good! Afterwards we were going to head to the bay so I could get a better picture when Jess is like, “Let's take the Sestri walk.” I didn't really know what she was talking about, but she just starts heading down this alleyway. We make a left, and start up this red brick path that was absolutely beautiful. If I wouldn't have been with her I never would've found it. She said it was just a short walk, but an hour later we were almost to the next town of Ravi. I had no reason to complain though because the view on the walk was absolutely breathtaking. I have never seen anything like it in my life. We were walking on this path between olive groves and the rocky coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Perfecion. It's January in Italy and it is so warm. I was sweating. I might have had five layers on after leaving Prato, but still. I had to start stripping some of them off on our way. It was interesting as we made our way to this awesome view how few young people we saw. Most of the people on the trail were older Italians. Not that that's a bad thing, but at the same time it was just different from back home. I loved this trail. Everything about it. I was so glad that Jess suggested we do it because it was the highlight of the weekend. While up on the trail we came across these rock castle like ruins that Jess and I decided to climb and take pictures on. Of course. I'm pretty picture happy and when there are views like this around...I just can't help it.



After we made our way back to Sestri we were both pretty famished. We decided to walk to the train station first to see when the next train was to Manarola which is part of the five fishing villages that make up the Cinque Terre. We had about 20 minutes before the next train so we went into this little sketchy fast food restaurant and quenched our hunger. It wasn’t the best, but it was okay. On the train ride to Manarola, while Jess was in the bathroom, these three Italian guys passed me as I was eating my sandwhich on the train and one after the other says, "Buon Appetito" I don't know why but I was really freaked out. I felt like a little kid on the train because I kept asking Jess, "Is this the stop? Are we there yet?" and she'd just answer with a polite "No."


We finally made it to Manarola after about a 45 minute train ride and passing 3 of the 5 Cinque Terre villages. The train ride was absolutely gorgeous though so it went by pretty fast. The town of Manarola is so quaint and cute. It seriously is built on a cliff side. Unfortunately this year there has been a lot of flooding in the Cinque Terre but Manarola was not really affected. I took probably a million pictures of the same view, but I didn't care. That's what the delete button is for :) While we were there we met two girls from California who were just sitting by the seaside drinking some wine. We also saw the most beautiful sunset ever. I guess it had to make up for the one we saw the night before. We were there for about two hours and then we had to hop back on the train to Sestri.

Once we arrived back in Sestri we met up with J. Berg's previous host family where she had an apartment right on the bay. They owned a restaurant right on the beach as well. J. Berg really had a sweet set up this past summer. So jealous! They gave us free food and drinks which was sweet. Afterwards we went home and watched some more Housewives of Beverly Hills. It was another perfectly sweet day.