10. Cinque Terre

I think I really am starting to love fish. We arrived in Cinque Terre and had another amazing dinner. It tied with our delicious dinner from Abruzzi. I had gnocchi with angler fish, you know the creepy fish that live so deep in the ocean they have lights on their heads to attract prey, yeah apparently those guys average around 7 feet long. I still don’t know how they fish for them, but that was the most delicious fish I have ever had in my life and before this trip I didn’t even like fish. After dinner we walked to the beach, and no surprise I got too far out onto the dock and got hit by a massive wave. Corey and I got up early the next morning and started hiking towards the famous Cinque Terre paths that connect the 5 cities. The views were amazing and we took lots of pictures and explored. We met up with the rest of the group and Nicky’s cousin and her friend who live in Italy met us too and it was fun to talk with them, they’re both finishing up school. The views kept getting better and better. We stopped for lunch and then continued on. We could see a thunderstorm gathering strength out on the ocean and we watched it head straight towards us, it was really amazing to see. Until it reached us and started absolutely pouring down rain. We stopped our walk short and didn’t make it to the last city because of the weather but also parts of the trails were closed from land slides. We headed back to our house and went out to the beach we went to the night before to watch the sunset. It started raining and Corey had the great decision to go jump into the ocean. It was 54 degrees outside but I agreed. So with some old people watching us from the beach, probably rightfully thinking we were insane, we ran and jumped into the ocean. It was so cold it nearly took my breath away and I’s so clumsy I got hit by a wave and went down struggling to get back up. All of that took roughly 15 seconds before we were back out of the water running like mad men through the streets, past people in winter jackets eating dinner, all the way to our Airbnb.