Carboverloading

Last weekend might have been the best weekend ever. We had Friday off at school, so lots of girls in my group took weekend trips. Some friends and I decided to go to Cinque Terre! Now, I didn't know a whole lot about Cinque Terre except that there are lots of pretty pictures of it on Pinterest pinned to people's "Places I want to go" boards. But that was enough to tell me that I should want to go - Pinterest never lies, right?
Now, you've heard of carbo-loading - when marathon runners stock up on carbs so they will have the energy to run 26.2 miles. Well, we took that concept a little too far this weekend. We carb-overloaded. Cinque Terre is known for its focaccia and its pesto. We took advantage, to say the least. But we were preparing for our hike?
The day we arrived, we stayed in the first little town, Riomaggiore. We explored the colorful little town, swam at the beach, and ate at an adorable, delicious restaurant overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. It was like a dream!

It turns out, Riomaggiore keeps the tourists away by setting their clock tower to chime for five minutes straight at 7 in the morning. Go figure. We got up and got our hiking gear on - heavy backpacks and all. Even though I normally despise hiking, I was pumped for this one - how many times do you get the chance to hike the Cinque Terre?
Before we left Riomaggiore, we ate breakfast at what we have dubbed the best bakery in Italy, maybe all the world. It was called Panificio Rosi, and everything in there looked amazing. We picked our pastries and climbed on some rocks by the shore to eat.

I'll never feel the same about breakfast.
Then we set off on our hike. Cinque Terre's cruel secret is that the hike between each town gets significantly harder as you go on. Normally hiking straight up the side of a cliff when it's a billion degrees and 100% humidity wouldn't be my cup of tea, but the views were amazing and I had a blast! The whole time, I just kept thinking how blessed I was to be there. Plus, I think we managed to work through about 1/8 of the carbs we consumed. And each town we came to was adorable and somehow unique - I was in heaven.

After we hiked all the way to the last town, Monte Rosso, we had a little bit of time to cool off by the sea, grab some focaccia, and jump on the train back to Siena. I loved every minute of our trip, and if I ever become super rich, I'm buying a colorful little apartment in the Cinque Terre. And a gym membership.