The Great Wall of China

Well hello there again blogging world! It feels like it has been months since I last posted... oh wait it has been; I'm a bad blogger, but I'm ok with it, I was off having a fun summer! If you have been following along with the peachy pear you may have noticed that Ali spent part of her summer in Europe (fun!), and I was also lucky enough to get in some travelling this summer too. I spent some time in Asia; China, Vietnam and South Korea in particular, and had intentions of blogging my trip along the way. Unfortunately blogger (the platform we use for this blog), is prohibited in China so I thought I would save the blogging for when I was home, wishing I was back travelling.

We started our trip in China, Beijing in particular (I will share pictures soon) and then made our way to the Great Wall (this is what I was MOST excited to see of all the places we had planned). We visited the Jinshanling section of wall, which is about two hours out of Beijing. We travelled this far so we could see the wall in it's un-restored beauty, and it was well worth it! There were very few other people on the wall which let us explore it as much as we wanted. There are a few other sections that are closer to Beijing, but they have been restored and because they are so close, are super busy.

^^ the scenery was great, the food however, was not spectacular so we survived on ichiban ;) ^^

 

^^ B is pointing to the part of the wall we wanted to hike to, it is the Simatai section and is said to be the best section, unfortunately it was being restored and we were only able to make it half way there^^

^^snack time^^

^^ a steep climb ^^

^^ the wall all to myself!^^ 

I hope to see you again one day Great Wall!

-Mel

Cinque Terre

This was the path I tortured her with the see a panoramic view. Little did we know this was the start to our hike the next day.

Yesterday evening my mom and I made it to Manarola it was too late to go out and do a lot so we just walked a little bit around the town and ate dinner. Today we woke up and really hadn't planned anything so when we went to buy our park passes for the walk between the 5 towns we found out that only the walk between Vernazza and Monterosso were open and the rest were having problems. I didn't want to be boring and just take the train between each town so i convinced my mom to take the back hike that is free from Manarola to Corniglia. I think I almost killed her off. It was a semi-difficult hike mostly because it was extremely hot and humid and the majority of it was up-hill with a lot of switchbacks. My sister also convinced her not to bring runners so she was doing it in Birkenstock's which were okay but probably not the best support on the small rock paths. It was really worth it though because for me it was really fun and the views were amazing. It was also kind of similar to the Path of the Gods in Positano because you got to see a lot of the garden areas with grape vines. 

It took us around 2 hours to do the hike. 

Manarola

Corniglia

Twins

Look who we ran into! It's Sean and Krysta (and Alex hiding inside)

Mom had blisters so we went to the train station to make our way to Vernazza

Vernazza

We had a lot of fun shopping for bracelets here 

We also visted a beach and ate calamari, shrimp and anchovies (I did NOT eat the anchovies, I hate seafood so I can only be daring to a certain extent)

Look who we ran into again. Sean and Alex. Krysta was off enjoying the good shopping for jewlery as well 

Ricotta and Figs and Lemon and Basil

From Vernazza we decided to do the coastal walk to Monterosso which was 7 euros. I really think it should have been less since the rest of the paths between the other towns were closed off. 

Looking back at Vernazza

The narrow path we were on

We found Krysta and Alex once again in Monterosso. Sean had left for Milan.

We ended the night back in Manarola for dinner. The Colella family has really ruined Italian food for me. I ate some gnocci and it was horrible compared to theirs. I miss La Casereccia and how every single thing they made for us was amazing. Now I can't eat any other Italian meal without comparing it to theirs and so far nothing has measured up. 

-A