La Vie de Deux Mademoiselles a France

The day started at 4:45 am. Caught the bus from Grenoble to Montmelian, train from Montmelian to Modane, Modane to Milan, Milan to La Spezia, and La Spezia to Riomaggiore. When I arrived at the train station in Milan I knew I was officially in Italy when an Italian train official helped me with my baggage, flailing his arms around trying to communicate with me in my very broken Italian, before saying goodbye with over 30 “ciao ciaos’s”. The train from La Spezia to Riomaggiore was gorgeous…all along the Mediterranean coast, going in and out of tunnels, past tiny villages. Now when I booked my hostel, the common theme with hotels/hostels in Cinque Terre is that no one can check in after 6pm because that is “family time”. Of course the train to Milan was late and I didn’t arrive in Riomaggiore until 7:45. The guy at the hostel desk informed me that my booking had been cancelled…I was sort of in shock, and when he offered me a couch to sleep on I said yes far too quickly! After taking only 6 euro’s off my first nights stay (the other 2 nights I was in a normal bed), he informed me I would be sharing a room with 2 guys, and began to laugh manically at me. At this point I was quite happy to have finally arrived after 12 hours of travel, so tried to shrug it off. Anyways, he carried my luggage up a ton of stairs to the dorm; luckily the room I was in was part of a larger dorm so it wasn’t a big deal.

Immediately I met 3 Aussie girls and 2 guys from Philadelphia (one who is working in New York, and one in LA). Went out for crepes and Bruschetta in Manarola (20 min walk along the via dell Amore to the next village). After we (us 4 girls) met up with the others at Bar & Vini, a super cool self serve lounge overlooking the harbor in Riomaggiore, where we tried the Cinque Terre vino rosa and Cinque Terre dry white wine. The red was amazing.

June 3^rd

Blue skies. Went for my first Italian cappuccino by the ferry dock. The regional trains running between the 5 villages of Cinque Terre were on strike this day from 9-5, so we had to take the ferry to Monterosso (the furthest village to the West, largest, and most touristy) to begin the hike. The ferry ride was lovely, after arriving in Monterosso we started the hike to Vernazza.

Really hot and humid, with a lot of stairs, was made enjoyable by the scenery and amazing views, oh and the conversation.

 

Once we arrived in Vernazza, we took a swim at the beach (my first time in the Med. Sea)…it was awesome, super salty.

After having lunch and visiting a small castle, began the hike to Corniglia (the least touristy town, as it is perched on a cliff)…a quick storm began as we were just coming into Corniglia, which we welcomed without knowing the consequences…

 Apparently any time in rains in Cinque Terre, the bugs attack. Well let me tell you, they certainly attacked. Due to a landslide between Corniglia and Manarola, we couldn’t hike that part, so had to wait for the trains to begin again. Killing some time we had gelato (peach and strawberry!), then bought some limoncino (about 15-20% alcohol, made from the lemons that are grown in Cinque Terre)…which tastes like a lemon lollipop. At 5 we walked down all the stairs to the train station where a heck of a lot of tourists and Italian on vacation were waiting as well, twitching, and swatting the bugs. Here we met some people from Hawaii and Texas. The first train finally came at 6:30 pm and I promptly hightailed it to take a shower to get the million bugs out of my hair. Back at the hostel I met another girl named Marianne from Quebec, who is also travelling Italy alone! Went out for dinner at one of the restaurants and had Ligurian seafood linguini: fantastico! Finished off with tiramisu and espresso corretto (with liqueur). There really is no night life in Cinque Terre, except for casual drinking…so we joined some Irish guys from Cork for a really entertaining evening. Quite hilarious and hard to understand accents (more so than Dubliner’s)

June 4^th – Saturday

2 cappuccinos this morning. Went with Marianne to a gorgeous swimming spot in Manarola where we spent the afternoon, jumping off rocks and lying in the sun. For lunch we took the train to Corniglia (my favorite town) to have foccaccia sandwiches and gelato.

 After going back to Riomaggiore to shower, we went out to Bar & Vini again and had a seafood salad, with cantucci and pie for dessert. We then took some wine to the harbor to sit on the rocks and watch midnight swimmers and a lightning show. We met a guy who grew up in Riomaggiore, but now teaches English now in Florence…he happily shared his bottle of limoncino with us.

June 5th – Sunday

2 cappuccinos and a local cake slice. Went to Monterosso (only village I hadn’t really explored yet) on the train with 2 guys from LA who took some amazing photos for me!! Will post them one he emails them to me. Also talked to some girls from Coquitlam who stayed at the same hostel I am staying at in Roma (The Yellow). They reassured me it was the best choice and now I have instructions to speak to Angus the bartender, to tell him that Trixie sent me, a reward being a free shot.

 Had pesto foccaccia in Monterosso before I had to hop on the train back to Rio to check out. Rushed madly to buy some food, pack, and lug my bags down all the stairs to cast the 13:50 train to La Spezia. In La Spezia I took the 16:00 train to Roma…where I am now.

Cinque Terre was amazing. The weather was perfect. I would love to come back and stay in Monterosso when I am older and can afford the hotels there! It’s quite touristy though, and I can’t imagine it mid-season. The hike was crowded enough when we went. There were a lot of American, Aussie, Canadian, and elderly Italian’s on vacation or backpacking through Cinque Terre. I am really excited to be travelling alone now because I realized how many more people I’ve met than when I was travelling with Megan or James. It’s more enriching and you get a lot of great advice and ideas for where to travel next or info on where you are travelling to! Not to mention invitations to come visit people where they live (i.e.: thee best perk ever!)