Another amazing weekend in Italy...

Traveling is a lot of fun but very exhausting too. I have never felt so tired in my entire life. I love traveling but I also love my sleep which I have not been getting very much of either. Poor Emily is stuffed up which makes her snore and those of you who know me, know that I CANNOT sleep at all when someone snores like at all. I've been trying to sleep with my headphones in but that really hasn't been working so I'm exhausted. I also realized today that we have only been in Florence for 12 out of the past 30 days. That means for the other 18 days we have been in other parts of Italy or out of the country traveling on ships, trains, and buses. Sleeping on ships, trains, buses, and an occasional hostel or hotel. Therefore, this coming weekend we are spending it in Florence and I could not be more excited. Although as time is winding down, there are papers to write so I must start buckling down and actually doing some work this week. Okay, enough complaining! This past weekend was by far one of the best weekends so far in Italy.

We awoke Friday morning at 4:45AM (yes, you on the east coast were probably all still awake). It's crazy to think that some nights, I go to bed and wake up before some of you even go to sleep. We departed at 6am for a supposedly 5 hour bus ride to Torino which turned into 6 hours because the GPS was trying to take the coach buses up a nearly impossible road. We got stuck a few times and then realized we were not going to make it up so had to back all the way back down. It was amusing but the bus drivers do an excellent job and I honestly do not know how they maneuver those buses around corners the way they do. We finally found a semi-easier route and were able to check into our hotel. We then took a walking tour of Torino (the capital of Piedmont, a region in the northwest of Italy). We only took a tour of the city center and I felt like we were just walking in circles around the city center. The city was nice though, it was very clean and reminded me of a city back home, it had some good shopping, some GREAT gelato, but most of all it had the SUN. It was such a gorgeous day in the city. We would have been happy just sitting in the piazza soaking up the sun. We then visited The Valentino Park or the park of love. It was a beautiful park and full of lovers and lots of little children (who I took pictures of!). We headed back to the hotel for dinner (cafeteria style)... worst food I've had since I've been here in Italy unfortunately. :( We went to bed quickly as we had to be on the road again at 8AM the next morning.

Saturday was another great day, it started off at the Egyptian Museum which was quite interesting but I was sooo tired I could barely stay awake, our tour guide was mono-tone which didn't help, and I spent so much time in the Egyptian exhibits at the Louvre that I felt like I already seen everything. The afternoon made up for it though because we transferred to Azienda Rossotto (which was about 30km outside of the city center) for a tour of the vineyards and wine cellar, a wine tasting with a paired lunch. We were up in the hillside with gorgeous views, the sun was shining, we tried four different wines paired with quiche, bread, salami, cheese, and dessert. Each wine was paired with a different tasting. I couldn't have asked for a better day not to mention that the weather was perfect again. I sometimes wondered why vineyards like this one would want a bunch of young kids coming to visit and then at the end, my question was answered... we practically bought all of the wine they had in stock at their store. They know we will BUY and that's exactly why they love for us to come and visit, people will ALWAYS make money off of us.

So, if the last two days were not early enough, Sunday morning we had to be on the bus and ready to go by 5:30AM. We had a four hour bus ride though to Cinque Terre (a series of 5 towns on the Eastern coast of Italy) so I was able to fall fast asleep and when we arrived to Cinque Terre I was wide awake and ready to go. We took a train from La Spezia to Monterosso which is the northernmost village of Cinque Terre. We then hiked to Vernazza (a 2 hour uphill and downhill path). The hike was like on the edge of the cliff and some parts were really scary and you had to constantly watch your step. One girl stepped too far off to the edge and a loose rock must have given out and she actually fell (luckily, only into thorns and bushes) and luckily there were some other hikers and some guy was able to climb down and pull her out with his walking stick, I was so scared for her but she stayed so calm and luckily only ended up with a few scratches). If I had been her, I definitely would have been screaming at the top of my lungs. The hike was well worth it though when we reached Vernazza, take a look at my pictures on Facebook, it is so beautiful and I know I keep saying that about every place I go but seriously every weekend, it keeps getting better and better. We had pesto pizza for lunch (Cinque Terre is famous for their pesto). We then took another train to the next town, Manarola, after spending some time by the water there, we then hiked to to Riomaggiore along the famous Via dell'Amore. All of the cities are beautiful and I really do not know how to explain them but it's nothing like I have ever seen before. Italy really is a beautiful country and it has so many different things to offer. By far this was one of my favorite weekends.