Cinque Terra

Hello! Yesterday, or actually today really early in the morning, I got home from the Cinque Terra. The Cinque Terra are a series of small towns located north-west of Rome along the coast. Upon arrival by train (which took about 4 hours) we didn't have any place to stay. The guys (Chris, Mike and I) were planning to rough it on the beach the first night and see how we did. The girls decided to book a room at a small condo for the night. The first day we spent most of the time wandering around Monterosso (one of the five towns), had dinner. Then towards bedtime we realized that it was going to be extremely cold out and decided to fit 9 people into a 2 person condo. I slept on the floor the first night...actually sleeping isn't quite right. That night I laid in pain on the floor the first night.
The second day was when we really started to explore the area. There are hiking paths all along the somewhat mountainous areas from town to town. It's about 8 miles of rough hiking but it was completely worth it. Each town was unique and separate from the others. That night we hung out on the beach in Vernazza swapping stories with each other. Sunday was our last day there. We went back to Vernazza that morning and stayed on a really craggy beach where we swam in the ocean and got slammed onto rocks by heavy waves. I had the unfortunate experience of having a wave throw my pelvis onto a rock so I have a little souvenir from that. We then left the Cinque Terra around 6 pm and arrived back in Rome slightly after 11 PM. The pictures are in a post below.