Because it is the weekend and we are encouraged to explore the country on our own during our “days off”, today’s blog is written from two different perspectives: Isaac Is writing from Cinque Terre, a costal grouping of five cities with outstanding hiking trails. Sam is writing from our home base in Florence. 

 Isaac: 

Today myself and a group of 5 other students woke up and enjoyed the view from our Air BnB, which lies in between two of the five major cities in the area and is only accessible by a 40 minute hike that increases 800 feet in elevation. All of this hiking is worth the view which is shown below.  

After playing some cards (euchre is the go-to game on this trip) on the patio we packed our bags and headed to the last of the 5 cities. After another 1600 vertical feet and 2 horizontal miles we saw the rocky beach of Monterosso. The water here was so blue we couldn’t help but jump in to cool down after our hike. The winter water was extremely brisk but the swim was well worth it, sadly because of poor planning, we only brought one towel so we had to air dry in the 40 degree weather where we got this group picture. 

We wrapped up the day by getting some pizza and taking the high speed train back home where the night ended by watching Sunday football in the hotel lounge.

Sam:

Today was a relaxing day for most of us, after getting back from Cinque Terre last night around 1am (Italy Time). I was finally able to sleep in and get some much-needed rest. There was no touring today, but we found an amazing lunch spot called La Forca. I learned that Italians love everything black truffle. I saw a black truffle pizza on the menu and decided I needed to try it.

The pizza was amazing! After lunch I decided to take a nap while others went to the hotel spa… After my nap we ventured to the hotel ristorante where there was live music, someone was playing an accordion which I have never seen anybody play live. I had an amazing scallop pasta.

The music was great along with the food. We will for sure be going back there. And then we finished our night of course watching the NFL playoffs in the hotel lounge.