Monday - Winding Down.

Wow, my last day in Italy is already here. I wish I could add on some fantastic, last-minute adventure, but today was fairly quiet. The plan was to go back to Vernazza, since I didn't have time to see much of anything yesterday, except the long flight of stairs that hurt every muscle in my butt on the climb down from town.

I took the boat over in the morning and wandered around for a while. The harbor is great for both boat and people watching, but the light drizzle that I was doing a pretty good job of ignoring turned into outright rain, and I didn't have my umbrella with me. This tends to make beachy tourist towns lose some of their charm, so I headed back to Monterosso after lunch, thinking I would catch an earlier train to Milan.

NO SUCH LUCK. All the trains were sold out, so after collecting my luggage from the hotel, I ended up with several hours to kill waiting for a 5:30 train. Luckily, the train stazione is right on the beach, along with several bars and cafes, so I happily passed the time with a couple of glasses of wine and a book.

Sidebar here... once when I first moved to DC and had gone up to Baltimore to meet my friend Karen who was there overnight for her work, I accidentally got on the wrong train to come home and ended up in Wilmington instead of DC. Ever since then, I'm a little freaky about worrying whether or not I'm on the right train...

But here in Italy, it's been pretty easy so far, and I'm in vacation mind-mode, so I didn't really look at what the stops along the way would be, and I didn't have a map with me. Just get on the train with the sign to Milano and get off once I'm there, how hard can that be? I thought the train ride was about three hours long, but my ticket did not have an arrival time. So three hours later, I'm getting a little nervous because I see countryside, not city out of the window. I get more nervous as the next few stops remain pretty rural. But I'm too embarrassed to ask THREE HOURS IN if I'm on the wrong train! What am I going to do if I'm on a train to Venice or something? I'll just wait until the next decent-size town and get off, and hope like hell that I can somehow make it to Milan for the flight home tomorrow.

Eventually, I hear the Italian woman in the next row talking on her cell phone and made out "going to Milano" so I relaxed a bit, although true relief didn't come until I saw the first city, Turns out that Milan was three hours and 55 minutes away, and of course I was on the correct train.

I'm just weird, that's all.

Sunday – Strikes and Hikes.

Today was my day to explore the Cinque Terre. That literally means “five lands” – the five towns that are connected by an 11-km hiking trail and preserved as a national park and a UNESCO world heritage site.

There are several ways to get around the towns. There is a small train that runs between each one, buses, a ferry boat, and on foot. But it turns out that the trains were on strike for the day (evidently a frequent occurrence), and that for some reason, this meant that there were no buses either. I’m not sure about the logic on that one, unless it was some sort of sympathy vote.

So I got my boat pass and took the ferry to the southernmost town, Riomaggiore, to start my day. The town was cute, and I wandered around for a bit, then started on the first pathway. This one is called the “via dell’amore” (lover’s walk), and it was paved and relatively flat. I got into Manarola (also cute) and thought, hey, no problem! But I had a decision to make. Corniglia, the third town, was farther away and more of a climb, although it seemed easily doable. But, that is the only town without a port, so the boat didn’t stop there. If I continued on foot, I would also have to hike to Vernazza, which is the highest climb.

What the hell. Armed with a picnic lunch, (foccacia, which was invented nearby, as were pesto and limoncello), I set off. The hike was a little steep to start, and the pathways WERE kind of narrow and rocky, but it wasn’t that bad, and the views were incredible. On the way, I ran into the Australian couple I met on the train from Pisa, who were coming in the opposite direction. They looked pretty winded, and said that it had been really steep.

At Corniglia, the first real hurdle appeared. The guidebooks I had read on the area all made it sound like actually going up into Corniglia was optional, but unfortunately, the beach-and-tunnel shortcut was closed.

So it was up HUNDREDS, LITERALLY HUNDREDS of stairs into town. Now y’all know that I’m not really a stairmaster champion sort of girl, so I was sweaty and gasping by the time I hit the top (but so was everyone else, so it didn’t seem as bad). I wandered the town for a bit, and recharged with an orange granita. I decided to attempt the hike to Vernazza instead of turning back to Manarola (the easy option). This stretch is the longest and highest part of the hike.

I DID IT… I thought I was going to die at a couple of points, it was rocky, narrow (just don’t look down and oh god why did I think this was a good idea?) and really, REALLY steep. But the views were INCREDIBLE, and I was ridiculously proud of myself for making it without passing out, twisting my ankle or falling on my ass (or any combination of the above).

But not so proud that I was foolish enough to attempt the hike from Vernazza to Monterosso, which is not quite as high as the one I did, but evidently has parts that are much more steep (what, vertical?!?!). I decided that 8 km was ENOUGH hiking for one day, so I caught the last boat back to Monterosso, where I treated myself to an extra glass of wine and TWO scoops of gelato after dinner at an adorable bar/restaurant right on the beach.

The pictures above show Monterosso coming in on the boat, PART of the area I hiked (the town in the distance is Manarola, with Corniglia in the middle, this was about halfway to Vernazza), and a section of the trail (actually a smooth part).