Viareggio & Cinque Terre

Sorry I haven't posted in so long! I've just been having wayyy too much fun! A few weekends ago was our free weekend, and we really wanted to go to Cinque Terre for the weekend, but the house we tried to book fell through. Therefore, we talked to one of our advisors who lives here, and he recommended Viareggio because that is where he and his wife vacation. After doing a lot of searching for a place to stay someone finally emailed us back about a 10 person house we had inquired about, which was only going to be 50 euro a person for three nights! This place ended up being perfect!

When we first got there we were kind of freaked out because it looked like a ghost town, no one was around AT ALL! Then, we realized it was because it was a holiday. The house we stayed in was about a 10 minute walk to the beach, but you had to walk through a forest/park to get there, which was really pretty! So when we first got there, we put our luggage in the house & walked around and had some of the best gelato from a local place called Nilo's. Then we walked over to the beach, where shops lined the entire beach. This place was very quaint & I think we were honestly the only Americans there, which was really cool! After walking around for a while we went back to the house and got changed for dinner.

The next two days that we were there were spent laying on the beach, which was absolutely gorgeous! While laying on the beach, you can see huge mountains behind you. The only thing that was not so great about this beach was we had to each pay around 5 euro a day to lay on it, but that included a chair for each of us and one umbrella, so it wasn't too bad. There was no way we were going to lay on the free beach. It was around 10 feet wide and 50 feet long, but that might be cutting it haha.

After spending a few nights in Viareggio, we took a train to Cinque Terre for the day, which is one of the most beautiful places in Italy! Once we got there, we began our hike up the mountain. After hiking for about 20-30 minutes, we got to a part on the trail where you had to pay to get through because it was a national park. Several of us were wearing sandals because this trip was a very last minute thing and we did not bring tennis shoes with us, and the lady would not let us go through. Therefore, only a few people hiked, and the rest of us took a ferry to all five of the towns. We got off the boat at the last town, Riomaggiore, and then took a train for around 1 euro back to the first town, Monterosso. Then, we laid on the beach in Monterosso for a few hours, and the beaches in Italy are, for the most part, nothing but pebbles. After laying on the beach for a while, we headed back to Viareggio to get our luggage and return the keys & then we headed back to Florence.