The Cinque Terre...sort of

This weekend we visited the west coast of Italy to these five little towns on the beach called The Cinque Terre. We actually stayed in a hotel in the next town over called Levanto, but it was still on the beach. Let me start by saying that the beaches, the water, the mountains, the towns--everything about the scenery--was absolutely gorgeous and fabulous in every way, like something out of a dream. Let me then say that this vacation turned out to be a flop and that we spent the same amount of time traveling to and from there as we did actually there!! To start the whole thing off, we left on an overnight train Wednesday night (Thursday was a holiday and I took Friday off work).

It seemed like a good idea at first...one person didn't show up, so there were 5 people in our little cabin instead of 6, and they were all really quiet, no snoring or anything. But about 2:30 I woke up and was suddenly having a panic attack. The door was shut, the air had turned off, it was burning up, I was laying there thinking about how there was no airflow and 5 of us are crammed in this little room, I couldn't even stretch my legs out completely because the bunks were a little short...I tried to go back to sleep, but suddenly I was about to go crazy! So I climbed down from the top bunk, had to wake Ben up because I couldn't get the door open (it was locked), then I ended up sitting in the hallway watching Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on my ipod for the next 2 hours. A bunch of drunk guys kept passing back and forth...finally one of them put his hands on my hips from behind and asked me (in German) to come with him...I elbowed him in the stomach, told him to get off...that was the point I finally decided I could survive in my little cot again. Didn't really sleep the last few hours, but at least I could lay there listening to music on my ipod without feeling like I was suffocating like I was before.

The next glitch in our plans happened when we made our connecting train. We only had 5 minutes to get to the next train, so we checked the departure schedule, and it appeared that the only train leaving at the time ours was supposed to leave was headed to Venice. Given that is the east coast and we were going to the west coast, we weren't sure if that was right. Ben asked one of the guys at the tourist info stand, and he told us that the train to Venice was the right one. I felt wrong about it, I even pointed out to Ben on the train that the list of stops that scrolls on the board outside did not say anything about La Spezia (where we were headed). So when the ticket checker came by, we showed him our reservation and asked if we were on the right train. He looked at it, even said, "La Spezia" out loud and said, "Yes, this is the right train," and punched our reservation. Two and a half hours later we were in Venice, the intercom announced that this was the last stop and everyone had to get off...we went back to the ticket checker guy, asked what was up, and he looked at our ticket reservation and said, "Oh, did I punch this? No, this isn't the right train." Fabulous. We then had to spend 5 more hours and 3 more trains to get back to La Spezia. We should have been there at 11:30 on Thursday, and ended up there at 6 instead. Let me also mention that we left our apartment at 6 the night before, so it took us exactly 24 hours to get to our hotel.

We stayed in Levanto that night, walked along the beach, had a nice dinner...

...then went to bed early. Oh, and a bird pooped on me...

We decided to stay in Levanto the next day (Friday), too, since the beach was so close and so nice. Ben went and bought a few "necessities" for the day...

...and we spent the entire day laying on the beach and Ben getting in and out of the water. It was awesome! The beach was sandy feeling, although it was really just tiny rocks. Getting into the water was a little hard to do though because the rocks were big and sharp walking into the water, and then it would get so deep you couldn't even touch...plus it was really cold. Ben loved it though!

We ate dinner in town again and walked around a while. The town was so neat...felt so authentic, not full of tourists like our experience in Venice. We really loved the town, but unfortunately did not take our camera that night and so don't have pictures of the town itself.

The next day was our last, and we were planning on taking Rick Steve's tours through all 5 towns. He had about 30 minute self-guided walks through each one, and we got up early since our train didn't leave until 7 that night...we thought that would leave plenty of time. Well, turns out, Ben was extremely burned all over his back and stomach from the beach, and it was really hot out...and we had our luggage with us...so sweating, carrying heavy backpacks, and sun burns did not mix well for Ben. We took a boat to the town closest to us (Monterossa) first and saw some German bunkers the Nazis occupied during the war...

...and so concluded our tour of The Cinque Terre- ha. Ben couldn't take it, and I wasn't about to tour it all by myself, so we went to the train station in La Spezia, and ended up taking a train home that left at 2 instead. We had a 3 hour train, then a 4 hour train, then a 7 hour train overnight home (no cots this time, just seats...now I don't know which is worse!). We got home at 7AM this morning and slept until about noon. At least we have a day to relax until starting work again tomorrow, since our original train tickets didn't get us home until the afternoon. Morals of the story: overnight trains are awful, the people working at the train stations in Italy are not very helpful, and Ben must re-apply sunscreen every 30 minutes or he will, without a doubt, burn to a crisp.