Rained Out in Riomaggiore

  Riomaggiore, Italy
Sunday, September 30, 2007

We had heard great things about Cinque Terra, the series of five colourful villages clinging to cliffs above the ocean on the Ligurian Coast of Italy, and especially about the five hour hike that you can take along the cliff tops which connects the villages, with spectacular views over the Mediterranean. Little did we know that the travel fates had it in for us, and we were due for a serious run of bad luck. After spending the day in Pisa, we arrived in Cinque Terra two trains later, and promptly missed our stop - the first time that has happened in almost eleven total months of travelling! Since we hadn't actually booked any accomodation, although we knew there were spaces at the hostel in Riomaggiore (the first town), we decided just to keep going and get off at the last town, the next stop on the train, and see what we could find. By the time we got off the train, the sun was just sinking over the ocean and it was spectacularly beautiful for about ten minutes, until it got dark, and we realised our predicament. We were now stuck in a tiny town where we didn't speak the language, didn't have a place to stay, and were trucking all our bags around in the dark. Right, time to get organised.

View Over Riomagiore

Luckily the tourist office was still open, so we grabbed a list of hotels and hostels and started ringing around. As the pay phone at the train station chewed through a small fortune in Euro change, our hopes began to sink somewhat as place after place told us they had no vacancies left, usually after several minutes of us frantically thumbing through the phrase book and Dan repeatedly saying 'No Capeto, No Capeto' (I don't understand) as the person on the other end of the line let fly with a torrent of rapid-fire Italian. Our personal favourite was the hostel owner who, when a dog started barking in the background behind us at the train station, took to repeating over and over 'No bow-wow! No bow-wow!'. Despite Dan's attempts to convey to him that we did not, in fact, have a dog, he stuck to his 'No bow-wow!' guns, and we never did find out if they had any beds free.

Ocean Front Fisherman

Our next plan of action was to catch a train back to Riomaggiore, just a few minutes up the track, since we knew that the hostel there did have space. By the time we got into town it was now almost 9pm, and we were pretty beat. We managed to find exorbitantly priced dorm beds in a tiny room through several back streets and up approximately 500 flights of stairs, and grabbed some pizza for dinner which we ate down at the harbour watching huge waves crash against the breakwater as lightning lit up the sky. It wasn't looking promising for a hike the next day, exactly, but we were hopeful.

Colourful Cinque Terra

The next day, we planned to find another night's accomodation and then set out and do the hike between the towns. We were immediately thwarted when we realised everything in town was booked up. Compromising, we decided to take a late train to France, stash our bags and do the hike today anyway. Thwarted again! Turns out there was a train strike starting that night, and if we weren't out of Italy by 9pm we would be stuck for several days until the strike ended. Slightly frustrated by this point, we booked tickets on the 2pm train and figured we could at least hike the first couple of towns on the track before we had to be back to catch it. You guessed it.....THWARTED!!! Turns out that the heavy rain had washed out huge sections of the track between the first three villages, and they were closed until further notice.

On Our Way

Decidedly disgruntled by our bad run of travel luck, we settled for hike around the hills of Riomaggiore. It at least turned out to be a beautiful day, and the brightly coloured buildings of the town against the blue of the sky and ocean was gorgeous. We sat down at the marina with more fresh pizza and watched the local fishermen repair nets and tinker with motors, and just relaxed until our train to France, hopeful that our luck might improve once we left the country!

All our best from Italy,

Dan and Gabrielle