Day 1: Cinque Terre

Friday: Willie and I awoke on Friday egger to start our spring break adventure around Italy. We happily made our way to the airport meeting our other travel companion, Andy, along the way. The next six hours breezed by until we found ourselves on a train departing from Milan to Cinque Terre. With every clank of the train tracks we pulled farther away from the dirty industrial region surrounding Milan and into the green Italian Countryside I had imagined. With one train hop we were closer to our destination. As the train rounded south we captured our first view of the Mediterranean. At 16:00 we joyously arrived in Montorroso Del Mare, The fifth town of Cinque Terre. Thanks to Andy's proficient planning we followed his guidance up one of the 3 streets in the town and arrived at our delightful Bed & Breakfast. We met our wonderful host, threw down our bags and went out to explore Montorroso while there was still sunlight. The town was just as I imagined. It was small, colorful and surrounded by rolling hills that pushed the town into the sea. We relaxed in the town, met two American girls, Megan and Katherine (who will appear again in our trip to Sienna) that were studying in Sienna. They joined us for dinner and indulged us with information about life in Italy. We closed the night at the "American Bar" where we met a few other travelers and had some good laughs before heading home to prepare for my most anticipated day of our Break, The hike through the 5 towns.