Portovenere, Cinque Terre, and Game 2

June 6, 2011: best day of the trip


Well up until day 4 of the trip I had heard nothing but good things about Cinque Terre. After stalking my older cousin Lucy's photo album after she backpacked through Europe and having a few friends tell me their experiences, I was pumped to go see it for myself! The Cinque Terre means 5 lands, and is comprised of 5 old, enchanting, small towns on the west coast of Italy, right on the Ligurian Sea. The towns are built into cliffs and they're older than the United States has even been a country! We bussed to Portovenere, a small town on the water close to the Cinque Terre, where we took a boat to the 5 towns. They are, in the order of our boat tour (south to north): Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and Monterrosso al Mare. The view from the boat ride was breathtaking. I took tons of pictures, but they don't come close to doing it justice.

Cady and me in Portovenere

St. Peter's Church in Portovenere

Boat tour!

Ligurian Sea

We rode the boat to Vernazza, my new favorite place in the world. As the boat was docking, we saw a man cliff jump off a mini cliff, about 15-20 feet high off to the side of the town. We were sold. After spending some time marveling at the small town's charm and elegance and a top notch lunch of pizza and beer... the BEST pizza with a Heineken to top if off (Rob, that's for you), we all spontaneously bought swimsuits (since we didn't bring them to Cinque Terre) and made our way to the cliff. The pictures tell the rest of the story. Everything was perfect: the weather, the water, the atmosphere, the scenery... it couldn't have been any better!

Riomaggiore

Vernazza, my favorite picture of the whole trip

The water was so clear!

Vernazza

Pesto left, margherita right. The best pregame meal I've ever had

I could have stayed there in the water all day, but it was game time soon so there was no time to waste. We took a train two stops up to Levanto, where we played their club team. This is where we witnessed the worst display of officiating and sportsmanship any of us had ever seen, along with the true meaning of "home field advantage." The Levanto club was less than classy and a pain in the butt to play against, so this is also where I learned how to say BS in Italian, and relayed my new vocabulary to the ref several times. I somehow felt like I fit in more by saying it. Even though we were all fired up at the time, it was probably one of the funniest, most nonsensical events of the trip. We managed to pull out a 6-2 win and took a ride through beautiful Tuscany back to our hotel in Montecatini.

Our beautiful field in Levanto

Cady and me after our 6-2 win!

Tuscany. Two hours of this from the bus made for some good thinking/reminiscing time. This picture sadly doesn't do justice.