Cinque Terre!!!

Cinque Terre was unreal. We left around nine, arrived about 1, and set out on our hike. We decided before we started that we would do the ENTIRE thing, all seven miles, which on average takes 5 hours (Being young girls we did the actual hiking in just under 4 hours, but when you include the stops it took a bit longer). We know a lot of people who went, but only did one or two towns, but we figured that would be silly to go all the way to Cinque Terre and not see it all. I was with Chloe and Kalea (thank goodness for a small group). We hiked from town to town, stopping in each for a bit to enjoy the personal characteristics of each. The hike was easy in the beginning, but definitely got more challenging as we went on. Each town was sweet and unique. We stopped in one for a quick lunch of caprese and pasta and continued on. The sky was clear, the sun was shining, and it was so warm out, the perfect day for a hike. We got plenty sweaty but enjoyed being in the sunshine. The hike was a lot of up and downs, over and over, and staircases.
About half way through we stopped for a while at Vernazza, we met some retired American men who we discussed with whether being retired or being abroad was more of a vacation. They were hilarious and we always love running into Americans because they are so fun to talk to.
As we were heading back onto the trail we ran into Kiki and her parents. Faj was a bit sweaty to say the least, he didnt necessarily wear the right gear...and Kiki was overjoyed to see us and get to finish the rest of the hike as a group. We did so, all together, which was nice because we stopped more so her parents could take breaks. The hike is pretty tough, we all got winded. I enjoyed the breaks because it gave me time to take more pictures. At the end of the day I had about 160 pictures from the day alone.
A majority of the hike I was being over-dramatic (shocker) and screaming about the epic beauty surrounding me. I was in shock basically the entire time. I wish that I could use the right words, or even have good enough pictures to explain to someone who has never been there what the place is like. It is so phenomenally beautiful it blew my mind.
We spent the hike getting so excited to jump in the ocean at the end, but by the time we got there the air was chilly and we figured for our coughs and runny noses, the cold ocean probably wasnt the best idea.
We parted with the Moline family and hopped on a train back to Florence. We were exhausted, sweaty, covered in dirt, so going out didnt sound like a good idea either. We walked Kalea home and Chloe and I went home, showered, put on sweats, hopped into bed and watched a movie until we fell asleep.