Cinque Terre

Sunday, 3.9.2014:

Angie, Shawn and I woke up super early in order to catch our train to Cinque Terre for the day. Side note: Cinque Terre is an area in Italy along the western coast that has five little towns. All of the towns are connected by hiking paths as well as trains.

All of us spent the majority of the train ride sleeping since we barely got enough sleep the night before. As we started getting closer and closer to our destination the scenery got prettier and prettier. When we arrived at Monterosso we got off and tried to get our bearing straight. There was no one at the station with us so it took us a couple of minutes to figure out what we needed to do. We walked into the only office-like building to see if we could store our luggage for the day, this lead to no prevail. Each of us had a sinking feeling in our stomachs that we would have to carry, or in Shawn's case roll, or luggage all throughout the day. We were not going to let the happen so we decided we would walk around and see if one of the hotels would let us drop off our bags for the day. We were even willing to pay a premium since weren't guest of the hotel if necessary. We ended up walking into this little hotel on the beach and asked the old man behind the desk if it was possible to drop off our luggage. This ended up being the best decision of the whole day. Not only we were we able to leave our bags there (for only 3 euro!) he helped us plan out our whole itinerary for the day. He told us exactly which hiking paths to take, which train pass to buy, what restaurant to eat at, which look outs to visit. He was literally our savior for the day. We held onto the map he had wrote all this down on like it was gold. After Andrea (our new favorite Italian) helped us we went out to find some food before catching our train to our next town. We enjoyed some pastries while we looked out at the ocean, we just knew today was gonna be great.

Once finished eating  we went to the train station got our tickets from the cranky Italian lady at the ticket place (apparently Italian women are never in a good mood) and then hopped on our train to Riomaggiore. This town is the most southern town. We walked around a little and snapped a couple of beautiful pictures. Here are some of them:

We then caught the train to the next town: Manarola. This is May favorite place abroad. No question about it. We walked through town and watched some kids play soccer in the town square before heading to the water. Words won't do this scenery justice so I am just gonna show pictures: 

Stunning. 

 Our plan (which really means Andreas plan) was to hike to the next city but after finding out that the hiking path was clothes due to a rock slide, we decided to punt on that idea and just grab a train. We missed the next train so we decided to grab some bruschetta at one of the restaurants. As we munched on our food we chatted away and couldn't stop raving about the scenery we've seen today. Before hopping on the train we picked up some souvenirs at one of the little shops. At the next town the station wasn't at the center so we hiked up these stairs in order to get there. Shawn counted and the number was like 395 steps. It prolly the quietest Shawn has ever been on his life since he was so focused on keeping count. At the top we looked in this little chapel before trying to find the overlook. After wondering around for a bit and almost being ripped off by a shop keeper we found the overlook. The reason why Santa Maria is so cool is because you can see the two towns on both sides of Corniglia. After taking in the view, we back tracked to find the restaurant that Andrea had recommended us. We all split a bottle of wine while we enjoyed our pastas. I ate this:

Although the eyeballs in the crustaceans kinda throw you off it was incredible. We even chatted with the owner saying that Andrea suggested the place to us. We had the biggest smile on his face when we said our new bestie's name.

Here are some of the pictures from Santa Maria and the chapel:

 With our tummies full we decided to walk to the next town. We walked to the trail only to see that this one was too closed off. Thanks to Andrea we knew that it wasn't really closed and that you could still hike it. We simply ignored the sign and kept going. The hike was a little tough at first since we were so full from our meal. Everyone time we would pass someone on the footpath we would try to stifle our heavy breathing. The first part of the paths was very uphill but thankfully the second half we were going mostly downhill. The hike was perfect and so beautiful. Here are some of the snaps I got on the way:

 It was also great because Angie, Shawn and I had wonderful conversations. Both of them are tons of fun to travel with. At the next city, Vernazzo we thought gelato and sitting on the beach would be a great way to take a break. We were right! Here are some pics from the beach:

 Fun fact: Angie doesn't know how to skip rocks, but she is really good at plopping them in the water.

After resting for a bit and soaking up some sun we decided to explore the town some more. Photos: 

Before catching the train back to Monterosso (our first town) we picked up some wine. Being Dublin kids we were shocked and grateful for the cheap prices of wine. With wine in our hands and smiles on our faces we hopped on the train. When back at Monterosso we looked around to find some pizza and a place to sit for a bit before having to catch our night train to Venice. At the pizzeria we discovered that our wine had a cork (something we were accustomed to with our cheap wine back in Dublin). Since we lacked a cork screw we tried to uncork it with one of the knifes at the restaurant. This was unsuccessful so we just gave up. When our food was all paid for we walked over to the hotel that had our bags and talked Andrea for a bit. He was so excited to see us and ask about our day. It was absolutely precious! We said that we had the most wonderful day and thanked him profusely! He was easily the most adorable old man I've ever met. During our chat he warned us about some of the stations we had to stop at on our night train and that gave us a bit of worry. Although we were now a little worried we were thankfully we had been warned. We said goodbye and walked over to the train station. We were a sad that we had to leave. Cinque Terre will be the place to beat!

Night Train from Hell: 

The three of us braced ourselves for the night ahead. The night train consisted of two transfers and one 3 hour layover. 

First leg, we all halfway slept and since our guards we were up we wrapped the straps of our bags around our ankles just to evade anyone trying to steal our bags while we slept. I didn't sleep very well on this leg because I was so stressed we would miss our stop and would be stuck in some random Italian city. After this leg we transferred trains. This was in Parma, and Andrea warned us that it was very sketching.  The three of us guarded our stuff like it was our babies. This little wait was kinda horrible because we had to wait in the cold outside. Freight trains kept passing through our platform so it made it even windier and colder.

Next leg. I completely passed out for this leg.

Now time for the layover - at 1 am in the morning. We were scared that our layover was going to be in a tiny little town and that we were going to have to wait outside in the cold with all the homeless people. We so grateful when we saw that it was a pretty big station with a big room for everyone waiting for trains. We left the station in search of food and coffee. We got excited when we saw the double arches of McDonalds and then the joy drained from our face when we saw that it had just closed. We settled for this shop near by. It ended up being just as good. Shawn was raving all night about the donut he had. After getting a little coffee and food we went to the waiting room. The smell of the room was uncompared to anything any of us had experienced. We were disgusted but we didn't want to wait outside. This waiting room must have been the meeting place for all of the weirdos in Italy. We also established some of the people there were pros at waiting in Bologna (pronounced bowl-lone-ya). There was this one family that had wool blankets for each family member. They also looked like they had about half of their belongings from home with them. We clearly did not fit in here. To say we were the center of attention when we walked in is an understatement. We stuck out like three elephants in a herd of of mice. We tried our best to be less obvious but we kept laughing and giggling since we were so sleep deprived. At one point the police entered the waiting room, and the three of us immediately thought that there was a raid about to happen (I mean who could blame us, the people there didn't exactly look like the most upstanding people.) Turns out they just wanted everyone to leave so they could clean, we were happy to leave if it meant the smell might be gone when we return after cleaning. We were disappointed when we came back after cleaning to smell that the stench was still there. We then waited some more. Angie and Shawn slept while I played Fruit Ninja on my phone for 3 hours. I'm slightly appalled that I did that. When it was finally time to leave we gathered all of our stuff to go to the platform. Remember that bottle of wine I bought? Well in my hurry to collect everything, I dropped it. It shattered everywhere. I attempted to run the bag it was in to the trash can but this just resulted in a trail of wine following me. We quickly picked our bags and ran out. Guess we left bologna with a bang. The only brightside of dropping my wine was that it helped the room smell a tad better. You're welcome weirdos in the Bologna waiting room! We ran to the platform and caught our train into Venice.

Next leg.This train was just a lot of spurts of sleep and the occasional game of Fruit Ninja.

One very eventful day and night to say the least.

Cheers,
Jenny