This day will go down in the history as the longest Thanksgiving Day ... ever. We all darted out of bed at 6am packed a backpacks full of random crap = umbrella, extra pair of pants, bathing suits in case we jumped off any cliffs. etc. i then made sure Muffy was upright and we headed out the door with Vig and the girls. Mom decided she would take the day off to rest her swollen ankles and explore the city on her own.
We grabbed the only to-go form of coffee at the Train Station - thank you McDonalds italia. Feeling confident in our travel skills we bought tickets thru the self service machine for a train that was leaving about 30 seconds after our transaction was complete. Awesome. So, we got everything exchanged and had about 20 minutes to chill before the Real train going to La Spezia was ready to depart.
All aboard, we pretty much dog piled on top of each other and tried to sleep the whole 1.5 hours out there. Right off the train we entered the tourist center where we had to get our 5Terre card which had included unlimited train rides and entrance into the park. 5 cities make of Cinque Terre - Monteresso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomagiorre. Amanda had suggested that we go to the very end town first (Monterosso) and then work our way forward. She had done Cinque Terre completely hungover and said it was a miserable experience and if we didnt want to hike (we really didnt feel like re-enacting a Man vs Wild episode) to take the train between towns and save some time. It was about 20 minutes to Monterossa and our excitement began to build as we saw glimpses of the colorful terracotta bricked town and the huge blue ocean.
The salt from the water hits you in the face as soon as you walk out. With no real idea of where we were or what to do we wandered around, took pictures on cliffs, climbed stairs. We stumbled upon a statue of St. Francis - Muffys name saint and had to take a pic of the moment. At the bottom of the statue we found an small open market that had tons of fresh fruit and vegetables, cheese and meats.. Aubs and i had talked about how much we wanted some good fruit and hadnt found any all week. I ate the best apple of my life along the beach and decided to play in the sand while Muffy collected a ton of rocks.
A good 15 lbs of fruit and rocks added to the backpack - brilliant, right? we decided we'd follow the signs to the next town: Ternazza. This all started out a great idea. I mean walking from one town to the other didnt seem like a big deal since we immediately saw signs pointing to Ternazza at the end of the market. Well clarification, by sign I mean someone had written Ternazza with a sharpie on a rock with an arrow. On the map there is probably a solid 2 inches between dots marking each town. Little did we know we'd be spending the next 2 /12 hours in hiking hell. Aubrey, our fearless leader led us the whole way. We went up stairs, We went down stairs, we shimmied around corners that only had a 2 foot wide path, crossed ravines, Muffy and I would burst into these laughing attacks where we would stop for a T.O. time out and stare at Monterosso from a far and laugh histerically at what we what had no gotten into. This entire trip was the opposite of safe and we kept gritting our teeth and saying "oh yeah, we are so not hiking". Karly pulled up the rear most of the way and just about every time we turned around she had a piece of toast in her mouth. She and her brilliance had prepared themselves for a long day on foot and so she made sure she had snacks and rationed the last piece in case this whole operation turned bad and we needed to camp and send smoke signals. I guess it was a good thing i now had a backpack full of fruit and rocks in case we needed to eat or kill for food.
There were 3 highlights to this hike. 1 was a family of cats we found. Someone had left 2 buckets with a printed sign that said in both italian and english "if you happen to stop please feed the unwanted cats" This was probably the most memorable part of Muffys trip. Highlight number 2 was a dog named Jake that found us. This dog and its British owner were playing in a ravine aka when the dog ran by us on these 2 ft paths - wetness all over my legs. Highlight number 3 the mere fact we survived the afternoon. I swear we all thought everytime we'd round a corner a town would be there and instead it was more green or more stairs to climb. Massive disappointment. We made it to Ternazza and had just enough strength left in our legs to make it into the closest restaurant. We feasted. CInque Terre is knowing for its Pesto so both Karly and Muffy got Pesto Trofie - homemade worm looking pasta and amazing pesto sauce. I took over muffys plate and decided to play in pesto - writing her name my name everything. The Chef took a liking to one of my designs and came out and took a picture with us. Exhausted and sore we were beyond excited to hear that the train station was 45 seconds from the restaurant. In the train station we met some 5 girls who were Americans from the east coast that taught English on a military base in Germany. They were going to Florence that night so we gave them some great recomendations for places and made some new friends. Our whole reasoning for going to Cinque Terre was to see a path in the first town called the Tunnel of Love. Shannon, Muffys friend had said it was a Must, that we'd all love and so we had just about 1 1/2 hours before we needed to be back in La Spezia to get the train back to Firenze. We got the local train to Riomaggiore and immediately saw signs for the Tunnel of Love. Everyone should go see this someday - in fact Muffy now swears her wedding will be held here. Grafetti coves every wall with people's names, when they were there. Messages of love, thousands of locks are clipped on the fences.. its just a magical place. It was dark now and we had just enough time as it started to rain to turn around go back to the station and get back to Florence. Our train home took FOOOOREVER. I think part of it was we had been moving constantly since 6am and we were now sitting and absolutely spent. We got home around 8pm and filled Mom in our our day. She spent the day relaxing and shopping. She strolled the streets and read her book and rested her baby tootsies.
I bailed on a shower, while Aubrey and Karly washed all of Cinque Terre off them. Mom Muffy and I went to dinner and got a chance to talk as a family. A deep well needed conversation about our futures and what we are doing with ourselves. We took a stroll after and found a church who had an open organ concert. I think one of the only reasons Moms goes to church is to listen to the organ - so this was such a treat for her. A final cup of gelato and I swear i was going to fall over if i tried to keep my head up any longer. When we got upstairs all i wanted was a hot steamy shower. Of course my luck would have it that ALL the water in Florence had been shut off due to sewage problems. Pissed I washed my face with a bottle of water and passed the f out.
We wake up tomorrow and say Arrivederci to this amazing city
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