Ciao

From Rome Mike, Kevin, Erik and I boarded a train for Florence. We arrived late in the afternoon on Easter Sunday with no lodging reserved. As expected on a holiday weekend, everything in the city was booked and we wound up walking around the city with our baby elephants (some call them backpacks) on our backs for three hours before finally trekking far outside the city to a campsite located near the Piazza Michelangelo. The campsite turned out to be great - the site was located on a hillside that overlooked all of Florence and it was full of young travelers like ourselves. Florence was a nice city - it was great after Rome to come to a smaller city with the small cobble stone streets that have become a permanent association of mine with the medieval villages of Italy. However, those small streets were packed with vendors catering to tourists and as we walked around, we heard more English being spoken than Italian, which was rather unfortunate.
Boarding a train for Venice, Mike, Kevin and I said goodbye to Erik who left for Munich to begin his study abroad program. The three of us arrived in Venice around 6pm and somehow found our way to our hostel, which was far out in the boonies of the city. After a relaxed night, we awoke early on Friday to explore the alleys and canals of Venice.
Venice is an enchanting city - its pastel colored buildings, winding canals and stone pedestrian streets provide an incredible image of a city right out of a fantasy book. The gondoleers slowly paddle (they don't actually use poles) their passengers (for the price of 66 euro!) down canals, their guttural Italian voices reveberating off the buildings that spill right to the edge of the water as they sing classical Italian songs. Mike and I spent two and half hours in the Peggy Guggenheim museum ogling over works by Picasso, Earnst, Jackson Pollack, Dali and many more (we also had perplexed, confused looks several times as we tilted our heads trying to grasp the meaning of some surrealist or cubist work, or a painting of straight lines that apparently symbolizes the laws of nature.) After one and a half days exploring Venice, we departed for Cinque Terre, a cluster of five quaint fishing villages in Italy's northwest.
The three of us stayed outside the Cinque Terre, in a small hillside village overlooking the nearest city, La Spezia. It was so refreshing waking up to a small cathedral's bells and smelling the fresh air that was sweeping off the foothills of the Alps. The five villages that comprise Cinque Terre are connected by a 12km path that climbs and descends hills tiered with grape vines, shooting straight down to the blue Mediterranean. Mike and I awoke early on our first (and only) day there and caught the 7:20 bus to Riomaggio, the town farthest south of the Cinque Terre. Approaching each of the towns, they appeared the same as the last - the same pastel buildings and terraced restaurants overlooking the sea. However, as we veered off the path to explore the villages, we discovered that each had its own, unique mystique. The terrain of the path also progressed to display unique differences, moving from a marshy field of bamboo, through a deep greed meadow dotted with olive trees to a slope of grape vines, climbing, falling and wrapping around the massive hills. We reached the final town around one in the afternoon and were pleasantly surprised to find a long stretch of beach at the base of the village. The beach occupied most of the rest of our day: laying out, tossing the frisbee, eating gelato...I didn't realize how much I missed the beach. If any of you readers find yourselves in Italy, go to Cinque Terre.
Last night, the three of us arrived in Nice, France at a great hostel that has a view of the entire city and free internet!
Ciao Italy. 10-4 out.