Our first full day in Cinque Terre was spent hiking the trails, working our way from town to town, and seeing as much of the area as possible. By the morning of our second day, we felt like experts. People at the train station and along the trails were asking us how to get around and where to go. It’s fun to show up and actually know what’s going on. Our high hopes of spending the day by the beach seemed almost impossible as we arrived in Monterosso and noticed empty beaches and an overcast sky. We walked through the town picking up some of the local specialties, my favorite being the pesto. For lunch, we tried to pick the most local spot we could find. It was here that it was time to conquer one of my “25 Before 25” items, “Eat a local delicacy”

All of our research told us that Monterosso had the ultimate anchovies. It was on almost every menu, typically caught that morning. I’ve never had anchovies and really had no desire to do so. But in honor of the challenge, I manned up and gave it a try. We went all out with the three course Italian meal and Bethany was surprised by the escalpe, which we were told were scallops but ended up being veal. It was quite the dining experience for us.

My first anchovy

Over lunch, we discussed the possibility of taking a daytrip to Pisa to see the attractions there, but our heart was really set on the beach and lounging around Cinque Terre. We stopped in the next town and I took my first Italian cliff dive into the cold waters, thanks to the brave girls we met from New York City. I couldn’t stay in the water long, but it was beginning to warm up. After an hour in Vernazza, we continued to move on to a spot outside of Riomaggiore. A short but very steep hike away, we had spotted an incredibly large rock out in the sea that we wanted to jump off of the day before. The sun came out, the temperature rose, and it was the perfect opportunity for another jump. Bethany braved the waters and took her first jump, but I obviously had to one-up her and moved to the highest point of the rocks. We met three girls from Canada that had all been saving money at their jobs in a restaurant. They all quit together and have spent the last three months traveling around Europe together. I was so encouraged by their adventure and willingness to explore while they were young. They planned to go back to school, continue saving, and move on from there. They were true examples of LTDdaily. We swam in the Mediterranean Sea with them, continued to jump the cliffs, then laid out through the remainder of the afternoon relaxing under the trails and amidst the clear blue water.

our friends from Canada taking the hike back up the mountain after jumping

When we made it back to La Spezia, we started searching for a gelato spot that we had found on our first day. It was the best gelato we had have had so far. We sat outside and bashed on dark chocolate gelato (imagine the best chocolate pudding you’ve ever had, but frozen). I was ready to take a picture for Instagram and suddenly realized my phone wasn’t in my backpack. I begin looking frantically for my phone, realizing that I had not seen it all day long. My last recollection was at the restaurant with the anchoives (a video we took confirmed that it sat on the table). A whirlwind of possibilities came to mind, from thieves grabbing it out of my bags to leaving it on the cliffs while we were jumping. My spirits were bashed as I played through the day over and over in my mind. We cleaned up and headed back to Monterosso to the restaurant. I found the server and asked him about a phone and his eyes immediately lit up. He said, “YESSS, the iPhone, we have!”. I couldn’t believe my eyes as he walked back with my phone in his hands. To celebrate, Bethany and I headed to Vernazza, the town that was hit hardest by last years storms. We sat out on the pier eating a delicious pizza made by a gentleman that was closing his shop but stayed open for us. I enjoyed a bottle of Cinque Terrre wine, made from the vineyards that we had hiked through the day before. It was a cool night, but we made our final stops in each town, meeting a girl from San Francisco that had heard of Campus MovieFest from USF. She knew the winning filmmakers and was a writer herself, so her mother enjoyed asking questions and connecting with us. It is such a small world.

Monterosso at Sunset