Cinque Terre

[warning...long post!] From Florence we took the train to Cinque Terre in northern Italy. "The Five Lands." The train rolled to a stop, and we looked out the window and saw.....

It was then that I wanted to cry, and knew that I was in for a treat! Cinque Terre (its five villages) are breathtaking.  The only way to travel between villages is by train or walking trails. We stayed at the bottom village, Riomaggiore. Loved it!

We spent the whole afternoon on those rocks, listening to the waves crash. So peaceful! Also, creepy encounter with an old man (more later).  I spent the whole afternoon praying a silly prayer to God that we would somehow be able to have an oceanfront table for dinner so that we could watch the sunset ON the water. We walked up to the restaurant and there was one lone table waiting for us. Again, why do I ever doubt that God wants us to have even little blessings??

The next day we took the small train up to the top village of the Cinque Terre, called Monterosso.  We laid out at the beach and swam in the Mediterranean Sea! 

Then we ventured to the walking trail to hike back down to our home village. I was not prepared for the hike. At all.  DO NOT assume you can walk these trails if you aren't in the habit of working out. But the views were outstanding! Notice the height of some of the pictures to see how high we hiked.  We stopped for lunch in the second village you'll see in the pictures. 

 We ended the day with dinner on the water again. Ahhh.  

One story that I have to tell about this trek is this.  Italian trains are incredibly difficult to figure out. Imagine trains that look identical, and imagine that there is nothing on the train that would tell you that you are on the right one.  So we had to constantly ask those around us if we were on the right train. We did well for the most part, but as we were trying to take the night train from Cinque Terre down to Naples, we entered the wrong train by mistake.  Once we realized it (and we still weren't even completely positive), we literally had to quickly get off that first train.  I got off first, and as I was lugging my 50 pound "clifford" suitcase, the door started to close on my suitcase for one, and about to leave Heather behind for another.  I screamed the loudest cuss word ever (yes) and with the help of a man right there, we literally pushed the door open so that she could get out.  Not my finest moment. The conductor was sticking his head out of the front yelling at us, saying "don't get off the train." Opps!! =) So then we sat there worried that it had indeed been our train, and it was the last one of the night, and that we were going to stuck overnight with no reservations in Riomagiorre.  As God would have it, our correct train pulled up five minutes later and we successfully made it Naples the next morning. Oh, but not without getting yelled at by the new conductor for not having some sort of stamp on our ticket. Sigh. Oh, adventures of two single ladies. We decided that it is always handy to travel with a man, so that other men do not feel as compelled to yell and mistreat.  In all, Cinque Terre was truly beautiful! And you should not miss it should you go to Italy!