Cinque Terre

On the fourth of July I wanted to be in a place with a lot of Americans so we could celebrate together, but the only place with openings was a campsite on the outskirts of Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre, a group of 5 villages, is a national park and a UNESCO Heritage Site; supposedly it is the most beautiful coast in all of Italy. Camping here is not like camping in America--at least not this campsite. They provide tents and there are beds and blankets already set up inside. It is cute but it is really hot during the day and there are many insects.

Hanna and I really wanted to go to a beach, so we went directly to Monteresso, the first of the 5 towns; we were planning to do a walk through all 5 the next day. The beach is very pretty, with a nice mountainous backdrop and numerous colorful houses. There are also enormous flowering trees and bushes that just spill over people's walls and gates. Unfortunately the beath is very rocky. The plus side is that we do not end up getting sand everywhere, but it is painful to walk on. I realize how much I miss being in the water so I went for a swim. The water was cold at first but I acclimated very quickly. There was a group of Americans standing the water while drinking beer. I avoided them because I suspected that they were drinking and peeing...speaking of which, we ran into some guys who also went to the Palio. They said that they spent the entire time drinking; I told them that I had been too afraid to drink because there were no bathrooms. they told me they had brought an empty bottle with them and they just peed into that. EWWWW

For dinenr we had salmon pasta and stuffed mussels, but it was not very fresh. That night at our campsite we had a really loud conversation about parting...and realized that the entire campsite can hear us talking. The conversation actually began because the person in the test next to us farted really loudly and we burst out laughing. I suppose if we could hear them fart they could probably hear us laugh...too bad that did not occur to us then.