pancakes & bananas?: 23 Aug Into the clear blue waters!

As a forenote, I wouldn’t recommend anyone to stay in CinqueTerre Holidays (94 Via Colombo) if possible. First of all, we didn’t get theroom we booked (4 bed private ensuite) but got a 6 bed shared room. The roomsare kinda cramped and small. But its still okay. There were bed bugs! We werewondering what were those small blood stains but found out there were bed bugsfound in our fellow flatmates beds.

Today we headed to Monterosso by train and the plan was towalk back. Monterosso is the most expansive in comparison to the 5 (cinque)towns and you can tell the moment you walk out of the train station. It’s theonly beach in Cinque Terre and its filled with beach umbrellas which you haveto rent to use em. Walked passed couple of restaurants and saw the seafood.Omggg. Immediately went in and sat down. Service was extremely slow. Ordered aplate of mussels (10 Eu), anchovies (10 Eu) and pasta with prawns(10 Eu).Portion was huge! Too bad they had cover charge if not it would be more worthit.

After filling ourselves up with lunch, it was time to hitthe costal trails! But this time, we found out that the trails were not likethe ones from Riomaggiore to Manarola. It was actually quite long. It was atrail that went inland. The gradient combined with the heat of the afternoonmade the walk unbearable and after an hour and a half we reached Vernazza,30min faster that the estimated time. Although I’ve climbed more challengingterrain, this time round the heat and the sun made it really bad to the pointwe decided not to walk from there to Corniglia, a shorter walk but longer indistance to the one we just walked. Just took the train to Manarola instead.Best decision.

What more to do to cool down from the heat than to jump intothe sea! Infinite reservoir! Found a new spot near to Riomaggiore (pronouncerio mah jaw ray). With the snorkel we just bought, we were able to see thecrystal clear waters (~10m vis). There were actually many fishes around! Butwhen in such places, the absolute thing that you must do is… CLIFFF JUMPPPPPP!The initial jump was definitely abit scarier because you aren’t able to judgethe height but the subsequent ones were awesome…. See video haha! After the‘model shots’ for toad we headed back up by an unconventional route. Haharockclimbed up to the railings and when we poped up, people were like w t f.lol

Dinner was simple, cone of seafood from Il Pescato Cucinatoagain plus lousy 5 Euro pasta. Coupled with the Sciacchetra, white wine andsome cheese, it was a night of chilling. Met the French chick on the way downagain. Haha it was quite dramatic because apparently we thought she went withthe Aussie dude to Portofina but she got pang sehed. But she was the one thatconfirmed our bed were infested with bed bugs.

Tomorrow we head to Venizia! With a transit at Milano.

Note:

A train ticketbetween the towns can be bought at 2 Euros. Punch the card and board thetrains. But in my option, you can just leave the card unpunched and keep usingthe trains. Hence you have a park ticket + train ticket for 10 euros instead of16 but do it at your own risk. I did not encounter any conductors during mystay there and I think there usually isn’t during the peak summer periods cosits just too messy.