What a life...in Cinque Terre
Trip Start
Jun 26, 2009
1
9
20
Trip End
Jul 15, 2009
Riomaggiore,
Italian Riviera,
Italy
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Saturday 4th
Lovely breakfast this morning and we headed back to the train station to go to Milano, Monterroso then Riomaggiore (in Cinque Terre). We arrive at Monterroso at 5pm so today is a train day – just type up this diary and look at the scenery. Joel will probably read and watch some Stargate.
This train is excellent, clean, comfortable and quiet. I would guess we are traveling at around 200k/hour. We also have a little table with a power point.
Funny Stories
While we waiting to get our train to Milano we watched couples carrying their large suitcases up the stairs into the train station. One couple in particular had two small bags and two very large suitcases. He was carrying/wheeling 3 or the 4 bags and when the got to the stairs she just walked up and kept walking and didn't even look back. He yelled something to her (I am guessing he asked for help). She came back and grabbed one of the smaller bags and left him with the big ones.
He was struggling to carry them up the stairs to you could see they were heavy. When he got to the top she put the other two bags on top of the heavy ones and got out a refresher towel and wiped her fore head – he then carrying everything, trying to keep up.
Caught the train from Venice to Milan and just relaxed. Copied photos from the camera, wrote in the diary and read. That took about 2.5 hours.
Next we caught a train from Milan to Monterroso which was a 4 hour trip but the time flew. We were in a cabin with 2 people from Sweden and two people for Ukraine so we spent the whole time talking (using bits of Italian and English), swapped travel stories etc.
cinque terre
The two people fromUkraine were so interesting – they were a young guy who had just finished his graduate diploma in architecture specializing in restoring old building’s and this was the first time he had flown
and it took a whole 1 hour to fly from his home town in Ukraine to Milan and he thought that was a long time lol. His sister was traveling with him and this was his break before commencing job back home.
The Swedes were traveling via train around Europe. They travel every year to somewhere different and try to use different methods of transport – drive, ferry, cruises etc. An older couple so I am guessing probably retired.
At Monterroso we caught a local train to Riomaggiore which was absolutely packed with
tourists – everyone crammed in which was a bit of a challenge with our packs but we managed.
We finally arrived in Riomaggiore which is part of Cinque Terre and wow, what a beautiful place – overrun with tourists though but I try to look past that. We caught a little green bus to where we were staying (the walk was about 1km the steepest hill I've ever seen). The lady knew the place we were going to and dropped us off in front of the stairs and the yelled out to an older man standing near by. He came over and indicated for us to follow. We followed him up some stairs, along a tiny path and then through a gate to arrive at our room. We stepped in and fell in love. The view was awesome. An old Italian lady showed us how to lock the doors, use the air conditioning etc and we managed to communicate quite well – she didn't know any English.
cinque terre
When we first arrived the guy was yelling out to the lady and it was just like the add on TV back on Oz with the Italian man and woman talking to each other and he scares the birds off the garden.Everyone here has a beautiful vegetable garden and lots of fruit trees. Grapes grow everywhere, peaches, nectarines, tomatoes, beans, herbs etc, just everywhere.
That night we ventured into town and tried to get into a restaurant but they were all full. Take away pizza was had. We walked back up the hill, this time we didn't have our packs but it was a hard walk, a lot of it up stairs that were so steep my short legs hardly reached to the next
one.
Sunday 5 July
Slept in this morning and then sat outside enjoying the cinque terre view. The old Italian guy here was picking fresh peaches and gave me about 10 so that was breakfast. This old guy seems to appear everywhere. When we went out last night he was on the road site and showed us how to get down to the town centre, he was at the bus stop when we arrived and now picking peaches in the garden next to me. He is a lovely guy who to me is so typically Italian (if that is OK to say?).
Spent the morning relaxing and enjoying the beautiful scenery in Cinque Terre and then in the afternoon we did the via dell 'amore walk today between Riomaggiore and Manarola – beautiful scenery but very very hot weather. We came back to Riomaggiore and sat in the cool for a while
and then had a beautiful dinner while overlooking the ocean. We had spaghetti with muscles and cheese and then sea bass in a pesto sauce finished with a lemon sorbet.
Funny Story
Joel found a Misako hair in a hot chocolate he made today.
