Cinque Terre is on the upper west coast of Italy. As the name says, it's made up of five towns. The towns cheerfully hug the cliff face above the water in their pastel pallets. There is a trail that runs between the towns, and you can hike in the cool ocean breeze, stopping for fresh seafood or just a light croissant at any of the towns you pass through.
Despite the beauty that was hitting me in the face, my weekend in Cinque Terre was a lesson in patience. The trails were closed due to landslides, it poured during our full day there, our hostel was at the top of 365 stairs, and I was sick.
But!
The fact that joyful experiences still found us, despite setbacks, proves the power of the beauty that was around us.
A lot of smiles came from the trains: when everyone gasped and then sighed together and we transitioned from one tunnel to another, with a glimpse of ocean cliff in between, or when we got on the wrong train, only to find that everyone else did too. The train we got on didn't stop at the five towns, but took us 30 minutes inland. Once we arrived, everyone in the train sprinted together through the station to catch the leaving train back to Cinque Terre. Americans, Britons, Germans, Italians, Frenchmen, we all came together as we illegally hopped the train back (no time to buy a ticket!) We were friends for a few moments.
We got seafood every night, and poked around the villages by day. The shop owners were so friendly, and I enjoyed getting to use my "umpo" Italian to ask them questions about their families and lives. I'm sure it gets annoying for them, but I loved wandering through small alleyways, looking at people's cliffside gardens and laundry lines that flapped over the Mediterranean ocean. It was nice to know that while it was a tourist spot, it was still hospitable enough for people to live there, and that noisy Americans hadn't driven all the locals away.
Day 1:
Our travels started out a little rough, when at 6am, we were lost in the Rome train station. But after help from a nice man who assured us he was "not a gypsy," the rest of our travels throughout the weekend were smooth. We flew low over the Italian coast and the Alps, and it was amazing to see tiny houses at the tops of snowy peaks! We stayed in a wonderful hostel in Lausanne, about an hour's train ride up the lake. We spent the afternoon walking along the boardwalk, exploring the Olympic museum, and being kids on the many playgrounds.
Day 2:
We took a train to Monterux, another town on the lake. After a stop at the tourism office, we got a map of the hiking trails nearby and decided to take a train to the top of the highest one. Dent de Jaman has an altitude of 6,152', and the train ride to the top was beautiful (at least the part I could see. I covered my eyes by the end.) We estimate that we hikes around 10-12 miles down. After a little while of being lost, we made it to our destination village and had hot chocolate and a banana split.
Day 3:
We took a train out to the small village of Broc, about an hour inland. When you think of postcard worthy Swiss villages, that's exactly what we saw. We were on a mission to visit the Cailler Chocolate Factory. It was a wonderful time, with a hilarious I Love Lucy moment in the tasting room, when we could not keep up as we shoved our faces full of chocolate. Needless to say, I don't think I'll be craving chocolate any time soon.
Everyone in Switzerland was incredibly friendly. We had several people volunteer help, with one lady even giving us her phone number. The pace of life there is much slower than Rome--definitely my kind of pace. Lausanne also had more green space per capita than any other city in Europe, which clearly showed as we explored the parks. We went all-out on food as well, trying duck, escargot, and horse steak! (I liked them all.) We also stuffed our bags with Swiss chocolate. I intend all my bars as gifts, but I don't know how many will make it home. I immediately felt welcomed and at home in Switzerland, and hope to return in the near future. It is a beautiful, awe-inspiring place that no words or pictures can capture, despite my efforts.
