Cinque Terre

Last weekend, three friends and I went to Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre means “Five Towns” and is a beautiful region on the sea.
We started our adventure by grabbing a train… that was an exciting process. None of us had ever ridden a European train before, and my valiant efforts in conversational Italian had little impact on interpreting the squiggles on our ticket. After an excessive amount of wandering around, squinting at departure time signs, and questioning strangers, we finally found our train.
We bumped along happily, playing my little travel guitar and laughing. We seemed an unlikely group of friends to me when we first made plans, but there seems to be some sort of mysterious connection between all of us. The group feels so warm and welcoming, and I get the sense that these people will continue to be important in my life.
Just as the train ride threatened to lose its charm, we finally reached the sea. We fed ourselves, then hit the pavement in search of a hotel. We walked along on the water, on a budget, on a Saturday evening: things were not looking promising. We finally found a little hotel right across from the water, owned by an adorable little Italian man and his wife.
Their rooms were all booked, but they had a small apartment on the hill which they offered to put us in for two nights for less then what other hotels had wanted for one room. We took it. It’s a ten minute walk from the beach, incredibly beautiful, and huge! There is enough room that the boys didn’t even have to share a room, which was very encouraging for their delicate masculinity. Ladies don’t mind sharing, so everyone was happy.
We spent our days swimming, floating in the water drinking Sangria, and paddle boating. The paddleboats only held three people, so we took turns towing one person behind the boat, I took that position frequently, as the water was so wonderful I never wanted to get out.
Because the beach is so crowded, we didn’t want to bring things that we would have to leave out while we swam. We walked down to the water in nothing but our swimsuits, a few Euros for drinks tucked in our bikini tops. I have that unexpected exhibitionism to thank for the sexy new tan lines I’m now rocking.
In the evening, when we weren’t soaking up sun, we lazed around our beautiful apartment drinking wine and playing music. I wrote five new songs in one day! Cinque Terre, you are my muse.