Cinque Terre

Where to begin. We had ourselves an interesting adventure in Cinque Terre this weekend. Saturday morning, Liz, Lindsay, Sarah, and I got up early and made it to the train station by 6 am. We were going to take a train to Pisa, from Pisa to La Spezia (the hub for Cinque Terre) and then to RioMaggiore (the village that we were staying in Cinque Terre). Cinque Terre is made up of 5 villages along the Mediterranean Sea.

We got on our train to Pisa, had an encounter with a creepy guy who seemed to be following us, but we found a seat next to an older man on the train who looked friendly. The creeper stood in the aisle and stared at us for a good minute or so and the friendly guy we chose to sit by, looked at him like, what the heck, obviously aware of the weird situation. Creeper finally went away to a different car and we were glad. We knew this friendly man had our backs if anything went wrong but the creeper never came back. We were pretty awake that whole train ride...

Stopped for quick lunch in Pisa (no, we never saw the tower). Found a cute cafe and I got a tomato & mozzarella sandwich thinger and everyone else got either a sandwich or a croissant with some coffee. When they came to bring the coffees...surprise, I had one too, that I did not pay for. For some reason, my meals always get messed up somehow(remember surprise lasagna, empty plate to share a pizza instead of getting my own, etc.) Note: This mix-up is important later in my story haha. So I had a really yummy surprise frappuccino. Then we took the train to La Spezia and finally, Rio Maggiore. We got off the train and the view was gorgeous! I have never seen bluer, clearer water in my life. Probably because the beaches are rocky. It was awesome though.

We got to our cute apartment/bed & breakfast (minus the breakfast) place and met the weird woman who owned it. She barely said anything and led us up tons of stairs. Our place had a kitchen, a bathroom, 2 "bed"rooms and a walk-out roof-top-esque terrace with a view of the sea and a view of the hill(s). Also an important side note. She explained some things to us about keys and such and left and went to the apartment upstairs where she lives. We got our swimsuits on and headed out to catch a train down to the 5th village- Monterosso. This is the one with the best beaches. We got some lounge chairs and claimed a spot on the rocky beach and jumped into the Mediterranean. The water was slightly chilly at first but it was awesome. Everything was so perfect. Sarah and I just kept saying to each other "This is real! This is real!" Haha

After a long time at the beach, we took a train back to Rio Maggiore for the rest of the night. We were going to get dinner there and my roommate Dani was also in the area, since she is studying in Florence this semester. We changed clothes at our apartment and Sarah and I headed out to the terrace. A piazza was directly below us and they were setting up for some kind of concert that night. A few people were gathered and all of a sudden they started looking up in our direction and pointing. It looked like they were pointing at us. At one point Sarah says "It smells like a campfire..." The people kept pointing so we turned around to see what it was they were looking at. Lo and behold there was a huge forest fire starting in the hills. The fire began one hill away from the one we were staying on (even though it looks like its ours). We watched it grow rapidly in only about 15 minutes. We began packing our things, thinking there is no way we can stay here tonight. The lady who owned our place was looking out her window at the fire. We asked her if it was safe, what we should do. In broken English she tried to tell us "a man with a hose will put the fire out" Haha OK good, a man with a hose. We watched the fire for a long time until somehow it had been mostly put out and was just smoldering a bit. Dani had arrived and met up with us around this point too. Her friends had decided to go back to Florence.

We were pretty hungry and figured that no, we weren't going to experience the last day of Rio Maggiore's existance, so we headed down to the village for some Mediterranean food. Turns out, in the winding street of the town, you can't see the fire or smell it. I bet half these people had no idea it was even going on. We found a cute place for food and I ordered the Ravioli with Salmon cream (as did Liz and Lindsay). They came out with everyone's food....except mine. Of course. We waited and waited, and finally we asked a waiter and he said "Oh" and went back somewhere, never emerging with my food. Then we asked our waitress and she went back to go find it, and came back with an empty plate for me. I explained that I had ordered the ravioli and FINALLY as everyone was on almost their last bite of dinner, they arrived with my meal. And just my luck, they tried to charge us for 4 salmon ravioli's on the ticket. Once we got all that fixed, we left to head back to the apartment.

The 4 of us, plus Dani were on the terrace dancing, drinking some Limoncello, and enjoying the concert that was going on in the piazza below us. There was hardly anyone there but they were playing some good songs. Eventually, the lady above us, popped her head out and got mad at us for having "Cinque" people instead of "Cuatro". Italy is weird about their housing laws, etc. We said that she was leaving and so I went to walk her out. Problem was, she had no place to stay that night. Dani and I wandered for awhile until it was safe to come back. We snuck her back in and she slept on the bathroom floor. What a night.

The next morning, after Dani left super early, we got ourselves to La Spezia to take a train back to Termini Station in Rome. We bought our tickets, not realizing that he had given us the wrong ones. We boarded our train later and settled in for a long ride back to Rome. Halfway through, men came around to check to make sure everyone had validated tickets (you have to validate them in machines beforehand). We had validated them, but he noticed that our tickets were for the slower train, not the fast one. We tried to explain that this wasn't our fault, that we had asked for tickets to this train and had received the wrong ones. He ended up charging us a penalty fee for incorrect tickets. 54 euro total between the 4 of us, which was actually pretty lucky since he could have charged us each that amount.

Let me tell you, we were pretty excited to be home after all that. It was a very fun weekend, with some pretty crazy and a few not-so-fun adventures thrown in. Cinque Terre was beautiful but forest fire and all, we were happy to back in Rome.

I miss you all! Ciao!