Cool story bro time… Wife and I were in Cinque Terre in 2011 for several nights. We stayed in a 3 room B&B in the Monterosso old town, owned by a guy named Francesco, where his Italian mother cooked breakfast each day. Great little place. Anyways, one day we set out on the hike towards Vernazza. We had breakfast in Monterosso, then a stop in Vernazza for wine and focaccia. Sat by the water and sunbathed on that outcropping. Then we headed on towards Corniglia. The trail from Vernazza to Corniglia was noticeably less crowded. There were still a few people but not many. Eventually someone who spoke English told us it was technically closed. Oops. Oh well, it was important for us to keep hiking because I had been informed of a secret nude beach along this stretch. Wife was skeptical but she was wined up so the world was our oyster. We eventually saw a rock on the ground the size of a baseball that said “Spiaggia” written in sharpie with an arrow pointing down towards the water. At this point the water was ~100 feet below us on a steep coastline. We of course trusted the magic rock and veered off on a tiny side path. It snaked down and at one point required us to crawl under a thorn bush tunnel thing. I slid on the rocks and scraped my hands. Worth it if we could only find the damn nude beach. We dumped out onto a wider gravel path closer to the water. I realized our chances of returning to the original trail were slim and we had no phone service. My wife would possibly kill me once her buzz wore off. Luckily I had 3 more bottles of wine in my backpack to buy me some time. A naked man walked down the path. No shoes or bag or anything. Just naked. “Ciao.” “Ciao.” Okay, so should we follow him or go the opposite way? While debating our options and somewhat regretting our choices, a group of 4 people came down the path. One of them said “Have y’all seen the beach?” I responded “Y’all? Who says y’all in Italy? Where are y’all from?” Turns out they were Texans, from Austin, 3 of them UT grads. So that made 5 UT grads walking down the same gravel path in Cinque Terre, looking for the same secret nude beach. We collectively decided to follow in the direction of the naked guy and we acquired a Canadian couple along the way. Well we find the beach and it was a picturesque stone beach with choppy water. There were 3 naked Italian men but no one else was there. The stones made a cool crackling sound as the waves kicked them up and dropped them back down. I swam a bit. The Canadian guy tried to swim and almost drowned but didn’t. The ladies went topless. We drank all the wine. Life was perfect for an afternoon. Eventually it was time to leave and we all headed towards Corniglia. According to the Canadian couple, the gravel path led to an abandoned train tunnel that could take you straight into town. Great, so no scaling up the cliffs to the hiking trail. Problem was that the train tunnel was dark and the Canadian couple had passed through the first time with a flashlight that was now dead. Turns out I had an iPhone 4? that was the only light source in our group of 8 people. So we all set out through the tunnel using my iPhone (I think it was just the screen light before flashlight mode was available) as our guide. It was about 3/4 mile long if I had to guess. About half way through, the phone died. So now it was pitch dark and you couldn’t see light at either end. We kept walking with one hand against the wall, feeling along the ground and holding each other’s backs to keep from falling. Then we heard a train coming. We thought this tunnel was abandoned?! The earth around us started shaking and we could see a light approaching. We all flattened ourselves against the wall and waited to get crushed. The train flew past in an adjacent tunnel that had some openings into our tunnel so we could see through. Whew, we avoided death. We made our way to the end of the tunnel through the dark. We said our goodbyes and the wife and I hopped a train to Riomaggiore (the trails were closed) where we had some bruschetta and wine at Pie de Ma. That’s a can’t miss place if you’re ever there. Stunning views of the Mediterranean. Later that year, flooding and mudslides destroyed parts of Cinque Terre, especially Vernazza. The towns recovered but the trails were forever changed. We returned in 2017 and spent 4 days in Monterosso, which is one of the best places on Earth to laze the day away, drinking wine and limoncello, eating gelato and trofie al pesto. Just typing this is making me want to book a flight. Maybe I’ll surprise her in the morning. But the trails to the beach are permanently closed from the floods and the abandoned train tunnel was apparently blocked off. We searched it out on our last trip and it was a no-go. Hopefully one day that will be accessible again.