Italian Rivieira

Just got back from an amazing weekend trip to the Italian Riviera (Genova, Santa Margherita Lingure, Portofino and two villages of Cinque Terre-Riomaggiore & Monterosso). If I had to sum it up in one word: Gorgeous! This was by the far the best thing that we have done since our trip has started. Everything was absolutely beautiful and it was so nice to be near water. This trip was part of an optional overnight trip that USAC offered for an additional fee (of course) so there were many other students from the program, which gave us the opportunity to get to know people better. My favorite part about the way that they organized the trip was that the sights got progressively better as we went along. We started off in Genova, a major port city of Italy, with a sweet harbor and great architecture. We took a walking tour of the city and then got on an elevator that gave us 180 degree view of the city from above.

*A quick side note about pictures: I love so many of the pictures that it was really difficult to pick my favorites for the blog. As always, there are links to the right where you can see the whole photo gallery from each destination. In addition, you can always click on pictures that are posted on this blog in order to see them larger. Also, per request of Mama G, we tried to look out for flowers to take pictures of. None of them are spectacular yet, but we are working on it. You will also find some more pictures of us sprinkled throughout the gorgeous landscapes (happy Ian?)

Next we headed to Santa Margherita Ligure, which was where our hotel was located. We had a foccacia lunch and walked up to a church and garden with an amazing view of the town. After we checked in to the hotel we walked down to the "beach". I put beach in quotation marks because it is nothing like the beaches that I am used to in California. There was no sand, only rocks and pebbles (still awesome though). It was already late in the afternoon and it was pretty overcast the entire day, but I decided to jump in the water nonetheless, so I swam for a bit in the Mediterranean. Actually, I mostly stood around freezing. The water was much warmer than the Pacific, but the sun was almost completely blocked so we were all a little chilly. This brings up one of my failures in packing; I forgot a razor. I only realized how detrimental this was as I was standing in the cold water and stubble sprouted on my legs. So much for that skirt I was going to wear. Another packing pitfall-no shampoo or conditioner. The hotel had shampoo but noT conditioner, so I was forced to wash my hair without conditioner. This was really great for my thick, tangle-prone, frizzy hair. Oh well, lesson learned.

Later that night we went out to dinner with some other students from the program. I had a delicous pasta with some sort of cream, pesto and tomatoe mixture for sauce....delicious. We got Gelato (mmm...) and walked around the city for awhile. The town was so peaceful. I think I could have walked around all night, but after a couple of hours of walking and hanging out with friends at a pub, we headed back to the hotel.

The next day we went to Portofino. Portofino is a harbor that is frequented by huge stars like George Clooney. Rumor had it that Madonna had been there a couple weekends prior. There was a HUGE yacht docked and I found out today that it costs someone $500,000 to rent for a week. I'm guessing celebs and millionaires are frequent visitors because of the beautiful view and seclusion. We actually had to take a boat to get there. I think Portofino was my favorite of the weekend. We hiked up to this castle and got the most insane view of the harbor. We had to hike straight uphill and up numerous stairs. All I know is I better have killer legs after this semester. Little did I know the stair situation was only going to get worse throughout the rest of the weekend, but I'm sure Dallan will talk about that in his post about Cinque Terre.