After horrible motion-sickness and a four hour train ride we finally arrived to Rioggamore one of the five little fishing villages. We stayed in a 14 person mixed hostel, which at first I was unsure about, but the owner was very sweet and he owned the bar bellow as well so he was easy to find if we had any troubles, which we did not. All of our hostel mates where very nice, they were young kids in their twenties trying to travel for cheap, just like us.Our hostel had a little terrace with a gorgeous view of the stacked colorful houses and a little park where the local kids where playing soccer. We spent the day exploring the five different villages and getting a lay of the land. The second morning we woke up early to hike from Vernazza to Cornilia. The hike was for the most part straight up the side of a mountain. We passed a man carrying a basket of grapes on his head and walking towards town. What a simple way of life, pick grapes, carry them to town, repeat. When we got the the top the view was incredible. You could not tell where the sea ended and the sky started it was just blue. We hiked through a vineyard on the side of a mountain, this must have been where the man was coming from. It was so quiet up here, so empty. I wanted to stay forever. The trail was toe tingling thin, and the drop off was harsh. We walked with caution until we reached a point where the path thinned. It grew more wooded and reminded me of home. When we finally did reach the bottom we got big panini sandwiches and took them to the beach of Manarola. This is the main tourist attraction of Cinque Terre. The beach was crowded and made of rocks which I did not enjoy all that much, but they sold margaritas by the bucket which made it much nicer. That night we got some pizza and seafood to go and a few bottles of wine and took them to the "beach" of Rioggamore to watch the sun set. It is really just a collection of large rocks that people jump from and swim around. The sunset was gorgeous and the food was so good. We met a kid from Germany about our age who spends his summers in Riogamore. We all sat up and talked until well after the sun set, then we all decided to go for a late night swim. We jumped into the pitch black water and swam. Our new friend from the area showed us a cliff you can climb up to get the best view of Rioggamore, then out of nowhere he ran and jumped off the ledge. My friends and I all looked at one another in shock then after a few seconds we heard the splash. A few seconds after we could hear our new friend from the water shouting "come on there is only one way down". My parents always told me "if your friends all jumped off a cliff, jump" or something like that I can't remember. So I ran and leaped off the ledge into the dark abyss, unsure of how high up I was or where I was headed towards. It was cereal. We all swam for a while longer, then said goodbye to our new friend and headed home for the night. Our train home was not until the afternoon the next day so we spent some more time jumping of the rocks in the daylight the next morning, which had an entirely different effect. An old Italian man feed the fish while his granddaughter pointed and laughed. My friends and I lounged on the rocks and took it all in.
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