More traveling bad luck came when we got to our stop in Rigommiore, Cinque Terre and we were unable to get off the train due to tricky door handles. We sat at the door and pulled and pulled until the train started moving and we had missed our stop. So, we had to get off at the next one, wait an hour, and go 8 minutes in the other direction to our stop. That day was full of traveling…14 hours in taxi, bus, plane and 3 trains.
Our hostal was a hike to get to. Cinque is very hilly and has tons of stairs. After checking in we walked around to see the town, which is very small and quaint…so much so that we were unable to find anything to eat at 8:00 pm (Jorge and Marta would have died knowing that they had to eat dinner before 7:30). We had to eat out, which we didn’t necessarily want to do, but we were starving! We ordered a pizza and plate of pasta to share and got gelato for dessert. We ran into some friends of Andy’s from cork, which was very unexpected!
On Thursday we woke up and went on a hike along the coast that went to the next city. It was called Via del Ammore. It took about 25 minutes. The thing to do is put up a lock along the way if you are a couple, but we didn’t have one at the time.
After that hike we continued on another route to the next city, but this one went up into the mountains. It was much harder with millions of stairs and vertical incline! There were some amazing views, but the path was very scary because it was super narrow and there were now guard rails. I am very clumsy when it comes to walking and happened to trip a few times..there were definitely some close calls. The trails were also not very well marked and we ended up getting lost super high in the mountains because we missed a sign along the way for the right path. We backtracked and went all the way back down the mountain to the city of Cornigilia. It was almost more difficult to go down.
We took a train to Monterosso, the first city out of the 5 that make up cinque terre. This city was absolutely gorgeous with a beach covering the whole coast and it seemed like a lot more was going on then in Riogammiore. We attempted to walk around to find a place to stay for the next night and eventually found ourselves in a market talking to a lady who had a place with kitchen, couch and a view open for the night we needed! We were so excited we finally got lucky! That night we had pizza and pasta on these huge rocks on the water while watching the sunset. Then we got a strawberry and nutella crepe to share for dessert.
Friday we got up early to go to our new place in Monterosso. When we got there the lady told us that our room was no longer available because we came to late…. Andy and I think there was actually no room to begin with. She called one of her friends to set us up for the night so we ended up following this lady who spoke no English across the city. We ended up in the basement of a building in a closet/ storage room we think. The hallway to our “room” had this scary looking doll and clown stuffed animal and was super dirty.
Then, our room was just big enough to fit a bunk bed and in the back was the toilet/sink/shower combo. We talked our way down a little on the price, but it still cost more than it should have.
After that we felt as though we deserved something for all we’d been through so we splurged for a daquiri and margarita on the beach. We spent the rest of the day lounging in the sun on the beach. Later that night we went to Vernazza (the only city out of the 5 that we had not yet seen) and had dinner there…this really good small square pizza we had been eyeing all trip. Then we did the Via del amorre hike/walk again and this time brought a lock with us. We found this hidden place where you had to climb some stairs and put it behind a barbed wire fence. We tried to catch the sunset but it was too cloudy. Then we ended back up in Riogammiore and wish we would have just kept our first hostel because we almost missed the last train from rio to monterroso. Crazy crazy crazy.
Saturday we got up early because we did not want to be in that “room” for longer than we needed to be. Luckily, we didn’t have to wait long for a train to our next destination…Florence. Our hotel was out of the city center because everything was booked due to easter. We left our bags off at the train station so that we could walk around the city for the day. We spent most of the day looking for Gusta pizza, which was suggested to us by a few people, but once we got there it was closed. However, we got to see a lot of the city during out search. We were starving so we found a different place that looked good to eat. Andy got pizza and I got pasta! (Italy duh!) Then we passed by this place with homemade gelato…they even had canteloupe flavor!! (my favorite fruit) I ended up getting nutella and tiramasu and andy got nutella and caramel. In order to get to our hotel we were told to take this specific bus. We found it but accidently got on the direct route, so it did not stop where we needed it to. The bus driver was very nice to us and helped us find another bus to our place. After 2 hours we finally made it to Ibis hotel by this big mall called I Gigli. We compared it to Bloomington outside of Minneapolis with the mall of America. That night we checked out the mall for a little bit and then watched some Jersey Shore (the only thing in English on TV)
ps- sorry for my crazy writing... we only have internet in select places so I am writing super fast!
PICTURES TO COME LATER!
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