Nice

After a bunch of different trains, I finally arrived in Nice.  I walked from the main train station to my hostel and promptly settled in.  I'm glad that this hostel takes credit card because I'm quite sick of using cash all the time.  I miss the credit card friendly American culture.  Anyway, I spent the rest of the day chilling in the hostel and contemplating what to do with my time in Nice.  I'm not a big fan of just laying on the beach, so I decided to go canyoning the next day.

I woke up extremely early the next morning, 06:45, and began packing my stuff for my day trip.  I took a tram and a shuttle up to the meeting point of the trip.  Our group of 7 was lead by a small french dude named  David.  He spoke very little English, but luckily we had someone in the group that translated for us.  After a 45 minute drive to the site, we geared up.  This involved putting on a wetsuit, a harness, and a helmet.  We all looked pretty goofy.  I couldn't really take any pictures because I don't have a waterproof camera.  However, someone did have a waterproof camera.  I'm hoping to steal them off Facebook once they're posted.  It was a lot of fun.  We basically jumped off 30 ft cliffs and slid down rapids.  I got back to the hostel and just rested for a bit before taking a nice stroll down the beach while the sun set.  When I got back to the hostel, I ran into a friend I met in Prague, Dora.  It was completely unexpected and super exciting.  We basically hung out for the rest of the night while she struggled with planning her travel plans.

The next morning I went sailing.  I went with a group from the hostel and traveled to a dock 30 mins away.  Our captain, Jean-Pierre, took us out on a 7 hour boat tour.  I managed to get sooooooooooo much sun that I actually burned.  I'm pretty sure that's a first.  We were sailing off the French Riviera and got a couple chances to stop and swim.  I also snorkeled for a bit, but I'm was too out of shape to dive deep.  It was basically a fantastic day. Perfect weather and awesome views sums up to a pretty great day.  I got back to the main train station at 19:00 and my train for Paris was leaving in an hour.  I took the tram back to the hostel, grabbed my stuff, and ran back to the train station.  I made it with half an hour before the train left.  Unfortunately, I found myself on another night train.  This time, I had to sit next to a lady that held a small dog the entire trip.  It was annoying how it would bark randomly.  Also, there was a group of middle school aged children that insisted talking most of the night.

Near sunset, French Riviera

A bunch of people watching the Germany vs. Italy game

What a hard life!

Peeps from New England

Ice cream boat!

Cinque Terra

I decided not to go to Barcelona, Spain and spend more time in the great outdoors.  My next stop after Rome was Cinque Terra, a collection of 5 little towns on the eastern shore of Italy.  I arrived late afternoon after a 4 or so hour train ride from Rome.

My hostel was in Riomaggorie, the eastern most of the 5 cities.  It was basically a converted apartment with a bunch of beds and futons for people to sleep on.  Unluckily, I got the futon in the living room.  Since it was still sunny and extremely hot, I went down to the stony beach for some rays.  I took a dip in the cool salty sea water before taking a nice stroll over to the next town.  I managed to lay down on a bench and fell asleep in a public place for the second time on my trip.  I grabbed dinner at a local shop and ate it on top of some rocks by the sea.  I went to bed pretty early that day since I planned on hiking to the other villages the next day.

I woke up around 08:00 the next morning and set out hiking around 08:30. It took about 20 mins to reach the next town of Manarola. This was the town that I walked to yesterday. Unfortunately, a recent mudslide caused the short route from Manarola to Corniglia to be closed. It caused me to take a detour up into the mountains and come back down to reach Corniglia. It took about 1.5 hours to get to the first town, but at least it was still decently cool out. By the time I bought lunch and ate it, it was 11:30. I began my trek to the next city, but it was getting extremely hot and my pace slowed quite a bit. I finally arrived at the last town, Monterosso, a little after 15:00. The views from the hike were beautiful. I drank about 2 L of water and probably managed to sweat it all off during my hike. I sat around the beach for a long break before taking the train back to my hostel. I almost immediately took a shower and grabbed dinner. I met my roommates and hung out with them for the rest of the night. We played cards and grabbed a beer later that night.

The walk to Manarola

Manarola

Path to Corniglia

Vernazza, 4th town

Monterosso

Rome

After 4 hours of uploading, I'm finally done uploading the 50 or so pictures of Rome.  I'm not actually going to write what I did.  However, if you want to know what I did, visit Megan's blog.

Megan's Blog: Rome

A couple of friends I met in Munich.  Too bad I can't find them on Facebook.

Megan in front of some national monument.

Ruins of ancient Rome.

Megan in front of the Colosseum.

Megan being a tourist and taking a picture of a dig site in ancient Rome.

Walking through ancient Rome was HELL.  Mostly because I was sick and it was about 100 F.

The Spanish Steps and the beginning of our walking tour.  I didn't really remember the description of the guide, but good thing we found him.

One of the thousands of random churches scattered around Rome.

Inside the Pantheon.

Megan's first cappuccino.

Megan before she makes a wish in the Trevi Fountain.

Super famous gelato place.

Megan is super happy with her gelato.

St. Peter's Square

St. Peter's Basillca

Vatican Museums

One of Raphael's fresco

Megan in a tiny elevator

Megan and Brandon dancing at a gypsy festival.

Attempts at reading a map

Rome also has a lot of obelisks. 

View of Rome from the top of a hill.

Megan is pretty thirsty.

Trevi Fountain with Brandon.

Pantheon again.

Gigantic hole in the middle of the roof.

Rome at night.

Vatican City

Early the next morning, I left Rome and became a lone traveler again.