Days 16, 17, & 18 - Rapallo and Florence

I finally got a little bit of internet! Europeans are extremely stingy with it. I think it is absolutely ridiculous but that is just my two cents.

So.... have y'all missed me? (That answer better be YES!)

What did you do after Rome, you ask? Kendall, Drew, Cameron, Schmid, Morgan and I went to Rapallo, Italy. This is a small, small town on the east coast. It was GORGEOUS! I have to give Morgan some credit here because he picked this spot and the hotel which was also wonderful. Vacationing in a small town with the Mediterranean outside my window was exactly what I needed. The views were amazing, the food was awesome, and the company was great. Here are a few pics:

It was beautiful at night...

Obviously we did very little the first day other than lay out on the beach, walk around and eat. We most definitely made up for laziness on the second day. We hopped a train over to Cinque Terre. A little background on the area; Cinque Terre is made up of five towns: Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore. Some of these towns were damaged by floods in October but it was still pretty awesome to see them. We road the train to Monterosso al Mare and then rented sea kayaks to paddle over to Vernazza. We paddled about 5 miles total (if not more) and it was the best 25 Euro I have spent on this trip. I got my paddling practice in for Nantahala after graduation so I suggest that a couple of others who are reading this get theirs in too. (cough, cough, dad, cough, Meghan)

I hereby swear that these pictures are not fake, did not come from the internet, and where in fact taken by my iPhone 4S. Steve Jobs, I owe you one.

This is paradise....

This is Vernazza. You can clearly see the damage from flooding. These buildings were completely under water in October.

It is kind of weird that this just popped out of the ocean a few thousand years ago.

So, I can now say that I have swam, kayaked, tasted, and even peed the Mediterranean Sea. That knocked a few off the bucket list. The Mediterranean is SUPER salty. We were literally covered in salt once the water dried off our skin. It was a great exfoliation!

This may be obvious without having to be said, Rapallo and Cinque Terre have been my favorite part of Europe thus far. I am most certainly going to have to come back. It was a dream come true.

Saturday, we hopped a train to Florence since there were no trains that would put us there in time by Sunday. We thought we booked a 3 star hotel in Florence, but we most certainly did not get that. This hotel was a piece of you know what. Thank goodness we only stayed there one night.

Yes, I am wishing I was in Rapallo still but Florence is great too. The only downfall to Florence is the ridiculous amount of tourists here. The shopping is really fun in the market and around the Duomo (I will explain in my next post). Florence is a must see but you can really do it all in two days and one night.

I am trying to catch up on posts so keep reading! Thanks guys! Miss you all! Ciao!