Riomaggiore

For the first official day of class in Cinque Terre, we stuck around Riomaggiore and were instructed to create some art of the town and surrounding scenery. I had such a hard time choosing a subject, since there was just so much I could capture. Another challenge that I soon discovered was drawing sea water. The movement, the multiple greens, blues, and browns, and the shadows and highlights all made the sea extremely difficult to translate onto paper. Now looking back on the experience, I think I was overthinking the whole concept. I have always embraced the idea of 'draw what you see' and I think I forgot that as I struggled to create a subject that reflected (no pun intended) what I saw. With this additional day in Riomaggiore, I was able to further wander around the town, and take some photos of the colors and subjects that I found inspiring.

Obligatory post dedicated to food

So, even prior to this adventure, I've adored Italian food. However, one of the aspects that I had most anticipated was being able to experience some great Italian food in Italy itself. I've decided that the best way to cover this topic would be to create a post completely dedicated to what I consumed over the course of my trip. The study abroad program didn't include meals, so I had brought a decent amount of Euro to put aside for food and drink. Because of the fact that I wasn't accompanied with a huge wallet to spend on top restaurants, a lot of the food I ate was street food. A slice of pizza here and there, a square of olive foccacia, some apricots, etc. Nevertheless, I think I was still able to get a pretty amazing experience, gastronomically speaking. Because I really feel that pictures speak louder than words, I'll leave it up to my photos to illustrate the kinds of foods I was eating throughout this experience...

My first pizza experience in Italy! It was definitely a positive one, even though I had to pit the olives.

Tiramisu for breakfast...what of it?

One place I went to more than once in Siena was a bar/restaurant where you could get all the food you wanted from this appetizer table if you ordered a drink. The food was mainly little bruschettas and some pasta salad, but I think it was a great deal, not to mention that the restaurant was located right on the campo.  

Of course, gelato!

There's really nothing better than fresh pasta.

I wandered into a few Italian bakeries as well, and here's some of the kinds of pasteries they would sell.

The largest bagel I've ever eaten! It had some kind of herbs or spices in it (fennel seeds, i think?) which made it pretty tasty.

Apparently, Italy produces quite a bit of apricots, which I never knew before the trip. Apricots are one of my favorite fruits, so I would buy several of them at a market to eat as snacks later on.

In Italy, the cheap pizza is actually the best pizza.

I tried a cookie from a bakery in San Gimignano, and it had apricot jam in the center.

More gelato!

This was the one meal that was paid for by the program. It was a wine tasting and lunch in the small Tuscan town of San Donato, and I was able to sample some of the best wine, cheese, olive oil, and prosciutto I've ever had. 

Chocolate and pistachio gelato in Corniglia. 

Little 'take-away' places like these were the most common sources for my meals in Italy. They were so convenient and the food always tasted good.

I had to order lasagna at least once (and it did not disappoint!).

Okay, so, if I had to choose one food that I enjoyed the most, it would probably be this olive foccacia bread. It's simple, but my goodness, it is so delicious.

Trofie e pesto for dinner. This was probably the most expensive restaurant I visited during my time in Italy.

More of my beloved olive foccacia and apricots for lunch!

Gnocchi with tomato sauce, which I ordered to go, and paired with a glass of red wine back at the hotel.

Fresh pasta!

Finally, sun!

After packing up the last of our things, we left Siena via train and began the trip to Cinque Terre, located on Italy's Western coast. "Cinque Terre" translates to "Five Lands;" a fitting name for the five small and colorful coastal towns. The train ride itself was not too long, with a couple transfers here and there, and it only took us a few hours total to arrive at our final destination. Our stop was Riomaggiore, the southernmost town of Cinque Terre, and the town where we would be staying for the rest of the program. The fact that it was a beautiful 80-something degrees and sunny outside was perhaps the greatest source of my excitement initially as I walked off the platform with my luggage. Our hotel was located in a fairly central part of the small town, on the other side of the hill from the train station. In order to get there, we had to walk through a long underground tunnel that would lead us right to the action of it all. The tunnel's walls were covered with fragments of multicolored tiles and there were shells embedded into the walls, as the five towns sit right on the edge of the Mediterranean sea. A flute player sat in the middle of the tunnel (good acoustics, I suppose), and her music added a whole other level of ambiance to my first experience at Cinque Terre. Once in the main part of Riomaggiore, we had to drag our luggage up a long, very steep, and crowded street. It was so much to take in all at once; the bright colors of the buildings, the slightly humid sea air, and the huge hill we were forced to climb! Unlike some of the other students in the group, I only had one suitcase with me, and I was very glad I had chosen not to pack even one shirt or dress more. Once we arrived at the front of the hotel, sweating and relieved, we were were given our room assignments. One of the girls who I traveled with at the start of the trip and I were assigned to the first room, and I was able to have a short amount of down time to settle in and change into some cooler clothes. The first evening was pretty laid back, and we weren't assigned anything to do as far as classwork. Several of the girls from the group and I decided to walk around Riomaggiore and explore, and we soon found ourselves at the port area of the town near the sea. We got a quick take-away dinner at a restaurant and then spent the rest of the evening enjoying the beautiful weather and scenery at a little bar that overlooked the Mediterranean. I really enjoyed these small moments, glad to have escaped the rain and cold that plagued our first week.

The first picture shows part of the hotel's exterior where we would be staying, and the second one was taken out of my bedroom's window. Even though this view is undeniably great, I don't think anything will be able to top the panoramic vista from our Siena B&B.

The rest of the images above are just some pictures taken during my first afternoon at Cinque Terre. All the photos were taken in Riomaggiore, since we didn't have time to go out and explore the four other towns after we arrived. The last image is the view from the bar/restaurant where we would return multiple times throughout our stay to end some long and busy days. The waitress there was actually able to remember our group and our drink orders before the end of the week!

Ciao Siena

As it came time to part ways with Siena, I felt bittersweet. The last day spent in the city proved to be a great one, and I only wish I had been able to experience the town under clearer skies the whole week. Nevertheless, I was absolutely excited to travel to Cinque Terre and immerse myself in a completely different type of Italy. Here are some final pictures taken in Siena, including a few from the morning of our departure.

Watching the last sunset I would see in Siena (for now!) on the roof.