Fri. 09-14-07 -- Nice, France and Monterosso, Italy
This morning we got up at 8:30am and packed up our stuff. We got to the train station at 9:45am with 20 minutes before our train left. I really love this whole train thing. There's no 2 hour check-in airplane BS, you just show up, get on your train and away you go! Our first train ride was 3+ hours long and got us to Genoa a little late at 13:29.
Our next train left at 13:49, so we frantically looked around for our connecting train before we realized it would show up on the platform right next to the one we arrived on! When the train arrived, we hopped on and discovered that our seats weren't next to each other. We found 2 open seats and sat next to each other to eat lunch (our left over pesto penne from the night before) then Kara went to her official seat as more people got on at the next stop. Apparently there was some sort of mix up because we both had window seats even though we were supposed to have an aisle and a window. A lady even came to tell Kara that she was in her seat, but they both had tickets for the same seat!
Even with all the confusion, we made it to Monterosso at around 3:30pm. We didn't have a hotel reserved, so we went to the tourist office and asked if they had room information. The girl at the desk asked how much we were looking to spend and actually called a place to see if they had room. She showed us where to go on the map, and as we walked toward it, we realized that this was way out in the middle of nowhere in new town. We didn't even walk all the way there before we turned around and decided to see if we could find a place on our own in the heart of old town.
We walked down the coast and through the tunnel to old town (schlepping our bags, of course) and then we tried to find pensions on the two maps we had. We mostly wandered around town until we recognized a "street" on the map and turned toward Casa Manuel B&B. I say "street" because what it really was, was a long and windy staircase that went on forever! We got to the top all exhausted and sweaty, but there was no one at the gate. We looked around a bit and eventually a young guy (Manuel?) showed up. He said he didn't have rooms, but he'd call a place and see if they had a room for us. They did, so he said an old woman would meet us at the bottom of the stairs. "She's pretty old, so she doesn't know much English" he said as we walked away.
We got to the bottom and stood around for a few minutes before Kara noticed a woman beckoning us to follow her. We followed her down the street and up another winding street/staircase until we got to a doorway. She opened the door and showed us a pretty nice apartment with a full bath and kitchen. "Cuanto costa?" I asked. She held up six fingers, so I said "sixty per night?" and she said "yes." Not bad, so we said "ok." She said "pay now or pass-a-port-ay" and since I didn't have exactly 120 euros, I handed over my passport. As she was leaving, I tried to ask her where she stayed so we could pay her. This concept was far beyond our language barrier, so we ineffectually tried to communicate for a while. Finally she got across that she does not live here, and this apartment isn't hers, but Stefania's. Stefania will come by tomorrow at 9am to get the money and give me back my passport. Ok, we had a plan!
Once we got settled, we decided to walk around our new home town for a bit. We walked down to the harbor and walked out to the end of the breakwater. From there we could see all of the other 4 towns of the Cinque Terre. After the harbor, we explored a bit and climbed up the stone hill to a convent and cemetery. We peaked into the chapel and then walked all through the cemetery. From up on the hill, we could see a long way down the coast, and could also look down on most of the town. As we were making our way back down to town, the church bells started ringing, so we stood over the town and listened to them ring for many minutes.
We came down from the hill a different way than we came up, and after a while we realized that we were coming down the street our apartment is on! We got back to the main road, Via Roma, and walked up it a ways and stumbled upon a grocery store so we went in and bought food for dinner. We took the food back to our apartment, then we walked back out to find a snack and get a drink. We found a café that was right on the water that gave snacks with drinks, so perfect! I got a big bottle of local beer and Kara got a chocolate gelato milkshake, and our snacks were kalamata-style olives and potato chips.
We walked home and made dinner (we watched Italian TV game shows while it cooked). Dinner was good, more penne pasta, this time with bolognaise sauce. It was dark outside by the time we finished dinner, so we walked back to the breakwater to look at the Cinque Terre cities sparkling in the night. We stayed down at the harbor for a while just talking and cuddling, then we walked back and went to bed.
