Day 20 - Cinque Terre

It feels GREAT to sleep in! We didn't get up til about 8am which is a rare change for us. I'm surprised we actually woke up that early considering our room was FREEZING COLD and we should've been cryogenically frozen and not wake up until there was a power failure! When we had defrosted ourselves, we went down to the lobby and grabbed another time table for the trains to Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre is fast becoming one of most popular tourist attractions in Italy. There are 5 coastal villages that make up Cinque Terre. Cinque being 5, and Terre being Village. And after hearing my workmates rave about it, it was a place we had to visit.

We walked towards the breakfast hall where a lady stops us and starts going on about something in Italian. Next thing you know, we're ushered into the breakfast room where they plonk 2 crossiants down on the table and screamed that they only had one chocolate crossiant left. Me not having a sweet tooth, didn't really care and took the plain one. And honestly, their breakfast wasn't the most appetising anyway. After staying at so many 4 and 5 star hotels, with a full buffet breakfast from bacon, eggs, sausages and various other deli meats and cheeses, to mountains of pastries and cakes as well as baskets filled with loaves of fresh bread, not to forget the cereal, fruit and mass amounts of freshly squeezed juice, their leftover crossiant just doesn't cut it.

After breakfast, we quickly headed upstairs and grabbed our gear before heading back to the train station. We purchase our tickets and quickly did a scan of the timetable to see when our train will be coming. This is when we noticed that there won't be a train for atleast 1.5hrs. Apparently from 9am to 10:30am, there are no trains to Cinque Terre. And you know what the best thing is? The timetable we got yesterday from reception and the one we got today from reception AND the one hanging in the foyer of the reception ALL SAY THAT. Yet neither of us bothered reading the timetable properly! This meant we had 1.5hrs with nothing to do! God I could've slept in some more! *Sigh*

With that in mind, we immediately went to the nearest bar for some coffee. This is the first bar we've been to that has bar stools. We weren't sure if sitting on the bar stools AT THE BAR counts as sitting down for coffee, so we did this half ass on half ass off the stool type thing. So we're KIND OF SITTING, but we're not. Anyway, half way through the coffee, this little asian girl comes out and sits at the bar with us. She would've been the age of 6? 7? This almost caused Moishii to have a laughing fit, because he reckons that was the young me. Whatever.

After the coffee, we still had a good hour left, so we went back to the hotel where we fell back into bed. God it was harder getting up the second time than it was the first time. After an hour, we headed back to the train station to wait for our train. Whilst we were there, we thought we'd pop into the ticketing office to try and upgrade our train ticket to Milan from second class to first class, simply because we thought we would get more luggage space. After lining up for 15mins behind a bunch of tools going off at the workers, they gave us a basic "NO!" and to do it on the internet. What a nice way to waste our time.

The train pulls up and we immediately jump on. First stop was Riomaggiore. We get oiff and wonder around aimlessly lost for a few minutes before we located the sign to the "lover's walk". This is an easy paved walk from Riomaggiore to Manarola, the second village from La Spezia. They call it the Lover's Walk as the lover's can stroll along the coast without breaking into a sweat! Plus the view is gorgeous! Probably why there are so many proposals that happen at Cinque Terre.




The walk was a pleasant stroll allowing us to admire the coastal view. Along the way, they had a cafe that allows you to sit back and relax. We also reached a tunnel where the walls are "decorated" with various love declarations.



We also managed to find the $40 woman's sister!!


We finally reached Manarola, we had to decend this friggin steep steep set of stairs to get down to the town.


And this is where we had to climb this FRIGGIN steep hill just for the fun of it.


The only consolation was that we managed to pick up a whole heap of really nice postcards. We strolled around the town a bit and managed to take some gorgeous photos of the town:





And suddenly, for some STUPID reason, we decided to walk from Manarola to Corniglia, the 3rd Village. Now don't get me wrong, I don't mind the walk too much. But it was around 35degrees and this was an unpaved road and we didn't have hiking shoes! I was wearing my 4 year old tacky running shoes, which I had planned to throw in the bin if I ran outta room in my luggage! There were a few times where we thought we were going to slip to our deaths.

And this is the "nice" part of the road

The bad thing was, all the people from behind kept overtaking us! And along the whole way, they have these signs telling you how long it should take you to walk to the next sign. And what should've taken 15mins, would take up 25mins! My only excuse was that we had to keep stopping for photos, and the photos were gorgeous!

Does that look like a pair of boobs and feet to you?

We had to run over that!

When we got to Corniglia, we were about to pass out from heat exhaustion. Why didn't we just take the easy way and catch the damn train?? *Sigh* Atleast we did the smart thing and waited the 20mins for a local bus to drive us to the town centre rather than hiking up the mountain. We followed the narrow pathways through the town in a desperate search for food. We were SO OVER sandwiches that we were craving for a nice BIG BOWL of pasta. And we spotted a few tables of people chowing down on the best pasta I've ever seen, so we decided to sit down.....in the cafe next door. Yes I know. We didn't sit down at the restaurant we were salivating over, but the one next door. Like WTF? Don't ask me why. I don't know why either. We ended up ordering a tortelini each, as well as a caprese salad. However, what we got was this:

Caprese salad

Tortellini

Look VERY carefully, there is still plastic wrap on the edge of the bowl. That's right. That's a FROZEN MICROWAVE PASTA MEAL!!! Its practically lean cuisine!! But you know what? That lean cuisine wannabe, tasted better than some of the pasta you get around Sydney. How sad is that?


After indulging in some ice cold coke and coffee, we set off to explore the town a bit more. Except we were thinking this place is the crummiest village we've been to, until we saw this:

Of course, someone ALWAYS has to ruin it

OK, this village ain't that crummy afterall!! By this stage, it was about 1pm and it was STINKING HOT. I was about to pass out! We decided to catch the local bus back to the train station and catch the train to Vernazza. We walked back to the town square and saw the whole village waiting for the bus. Bloody hell, this is going to be a tight squeeze. We waited for a bus when suddenly a woman charges past us with a massive vacum cleaner. Like wtf? Who runs around with a vacum cleaner? Our theory is that she's going to hike from Corniglia to Manarola with that vacum cleaner. We barely got our laughing fit under control when the bus came. Within seconds, there was a stampede. Luckily I managed to grab hold of Moishii and dragged him onto the bus before we got stomped to death. Meanwhile, there were these 3 Japanese guys that have been following us from Manarola to all around Corniglia. And when we jumped onto the train to Vernazza, they were right behind us as well. It was as if they didn't know what to do, and seeing that I was the only asian, decided to do whatever I was going to do. We had to lose these stalkers.

However, we completely forgot about them the minute we got to Vernazza. It was a small quaint little village with the cobblestoned walkways. There were people lounging about enjoying their gelato whilst soaking up the sun. As we kept walking, we eventually came upon their little piece of heaven:







We ended up just sitting by the pier watching the people for a good half hour. And we were probably watching this couple play frisbee more than anything. Whenever the guy does a bad throw to the girlfriend, who misses the catch. She would HURL the frisbee back at him, aiming for a spot near a boat. It seemed that she was hoping he'll lunge for the frisbee and smack himself into the boat. '


We eventually got up and hit the bar for some alcohol. Its been a long day and we need alcohol alright?? After that, we hopped back onto the train to the last village, Monterosso. This is probably the most touristy village of them all. The beaches are lined with beach chairs and umbrellas. It looked more like a resort than a village to me!

Leaving Vernazza for Monterosso

That looks sooooooo wrong doesn't it?? Hehe

By this time, we were completely exhausted. The sun was blazing hot and if I was a piece of steak, I was beyond well done. We strolled through the seats until we found a nice quiet shady area outside a church to rest. This is when Moishii spotted the church security guard sleeping on the job:

Church Security

Random woman watching security slack off

We had finally had enough of the whole sight seeing thing and decided to head on home. Instad of catching the train back to La Spezia, we hopped onto a ferry that would take us from Monterosso to Manarola. The views was worth every cent we paid:

The Ferry

When we got back to Manarola, it was a hike all the way back to the train station to get to La Spezia. By this time, I was ready to drop dead. However, if we went back to the hotel to rest, we would not leave again to go have dinner. So we decided to have an early dinner and then go back to rest. However, I think it was TOO early for the Italians. We went back to the same pizza restaurant and sat there, and sat there and sat there. No one came out to serve us after 15mins so I stormed in to see all of them sitting down to dinner. They were completely disgusted that we wanted to eat dinner there. And they kept telling us all they're willing to serve us is pizza (hoping we'll leave), but we only wanted to pizza. So they were screwed either way. We also ordered another bottle of wine to help with the packing of our luggage tonight.

I needed that drink BADLY

Ham, mushroom and olive pizza

Porcini mushroom pizza

Suddenly, out of no where, the most gorgeous dog appears! And I said outloud to Moishii "OMG! Thats soooooo cute!". So the owner stops, and steers the dog towards me, and instructs the dog to jump all over me! However, the dog was so cute I didn't mind!


After we finished our meal, we stumbled back to the hotel in a drunken stupor to pack our belongings and crashed into bed for the night.

By the way, this photo seems to capture the essence of Cinque Terre for me. I didn't even remember taking this until I was browsing through my photos the other day. It totally took my breath away and brought me back to Italy. I must admit, I couldn't help but smile when I realised I took this photo! It was something I would've paid for if it was a postcard! hehe