Lucca, Cinque Terre, & Pisa (July 4- 7)

July 4
Independence Day! I did remember!!! Due to the countless train strikes that take place in July here in Italy, we took our group bus to Cinque Terre. On the way, we stopped to have lunch in a Tuscan town called Lucca. It is very similar to Sienna. Lucca is famous for its intact Renaissance-era city walls that you can bike around to see the town. We arrived in the Cinque Terre region in the afternoon. We stayed at a hostel in Levanto..which is basically considered the 6th town. Cinque means 5 in Italian. Cinque Terre is more of an adventurous beach town that is slowly starting to become touristy...which is a shame ha!

July 5
The majority of the group did the hiking thing between the towns...but since I had done that with Dad last week, the whole weekend was devoted to getting a tan. Thus being said, 5 of us went to Vernazza (the second town) and layed out on the big rocks because there isn't really a sandy beach. The waves were crazy...at least 10 and 12 feet waves crashing on our rocks...Nice breeze and sound machine. Except one time, I got a little too close and the waves wanted to pull me back in the sea.

When we came back to Levanto, I went strolling down the street...low and behold I found an art gallery! So ofcourse I had to buy something... a beautiful painting of Tuscany and the fields of sunflowers. Here is a picture of the fields from our bus ride...


July 6
Pretty much did the same as the day before except hopped aroundt the different towns to get a change of scenery...because the sun shines from early morning to 9 at night. Plenty of time to get a tan!
July 7
We traveled back to Ariccia. On our way back we stopped in Pisa. Got the picture with the leaning tower and that was about it.