Just kidding.
Today was our last day in the Toscana region of Italia. Tomorrow we leave for Rome. We wanted to do something fun today, so we set out for the "Italian riviera," Cinque Terra. Wow. This seascape was a sight to see. Perhaps the most beautiful piece of earth we have laid eyes on this entire trip. Cinque Terra is a bit of a trip from Pistoia, you travel by train with several stops. Unknowingly, we decided to make it an even longer trip by taking a few wrong trains.
We had the option of waking up super early and taking the 7 am train, but that did not happen, so we took the 9 am train. Our first stop was about an hour away, which came and went quickly with the help of our books. At the next stop we checked what we thought was the departure board to find our next train. We wondered aloud, "is this train going the wrong way?" Sure enough, we had been looking at the arrivals board. oops. I am very tired as I write this, so I flash forward a few hours to when we reach our destination... wwwhoooossshhh.
Cinque Terra consists of five small towns, we started our journey in the 4th town, Vernazza. It was beautiful. I wish we could upload pictures, but without wifi, we can not. Hopefully tomorrow. We grabbed some pesto pizza (pesto is something they are known for) and headed towards the water. We found a slab of land overlooking the sea. We let our legs hang off the edge, soaked up the sun and enjoyed our lazy lunch. We looked around the town for a bit, then headed to our next stop, Manarola (we skipped one town in the process). From there, we bought some jarred pesto, we also walked the famous Via Dell Amore. The story goes, that in the past, the two small towns people never got to know one and other, so they built a walkway. It was used primarily for young lovers from the different towns to meet. People lock padlocks to chains along the path to signify their bond nowadays.
Riomaggiore is the last town we hit. There we watched the sunset will sipping espresso. Very nice. We missed our train by only a few seconds, and had to wait for 45 minutes. During our wait we found a little market where we bought some bread and cheese for later. Our train finally came, and we were on our way home without a hitch. Or so we thought. Once we were out of the smaller train stations, we bought our main ticket home. We checked he departures list, and yes, we checked the right list, and found a shortcut in our route. We could take a Rome bound train to our next stop. Perfect! We headed towards the back of the train to be away from everyone else. We plopped down in our seats, commenting how nice everything was, and we began to eat. Halfway through our meal a conductor came by to check our tickets. "Wrong tickets," he tells us, "Where are your other tickets?" Other tickets? He tells us we are sitting on a EuroStar high speed train, in first class, and we will need to pay for our seats. Great. We tell him about the mix up, he is very nice, and works with us. He does not charge us for the first class seats, but lets us stay. He did, however, charge us another 30 euro.
The adventure continues! The next station left us with a 20 minute layover in a sketchy place. We were waiting near as many people as we could find when a very large homeless man holding a very large jug of what looked like olive oil came towards us. "UUUUUGGHHHH AAARRRRRGHHGGHHH?" He said. We ran.
And now we are back home, safe and sound. We will head for Rome on the cheap train, no first class EuroStar, in the morning. Thanks again for reading. If none of this made sense, blame it on our exhaustion and the Italian keyboard.
Miss you all,
Ciao!
Riomaggiore is the last town we hit. There we watched the sunset will sipping espresso. Very nice. We missed our train by only a few seconds, and had to wait for 45 minutes. During our wait we found a little market where we bought some bread and cheese for later. Our train finally came, and we were on our way home without a hitch. Or so we thought. Once we were out of the smaller train stations, we bought our main ticket home. We checked he departures list, and yes, we checked the right list, and found a shortcut in our route. We could take a Rome bound train to our next stop. Perfect! We headed towards the back of the train to be away from everyone else. We plopped down in our seats, commenting how nice everything was, and we began to eat. Halfway through our meal a conductor came by to check our tickets. "Wrong tickets," he tells us, "Where are your other tickets?" Other tickets? He tells us we are sitting on a EuroStar high speed train, in first class, and we will need to pay for our seats. Great. We tell him about the mix up, he is very nice, and works with us. He does not charge us for the first class seats, but lets us stay. He did, however, charge us another 30 euro.
The adventure continues! The next station left us with a 20 minute layover in a sketchy place. We were waiting near as many people as we could find when a very large homeless man holding a very large jug of what looked like olive oil came towards us. "UUUUUGGHHHH AAARRRRRGHHGGHHH?" He said. We ran.
And now we are back home, safe and sound. We will head for Rome on the cheap train, no first class EuroStar, in the morning. Thanks again for reading. If none of this made sense, blame it on our exhaustion and the Italian keyboard.
Miss you all,
Ciao!
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