When we stepped off the train, we were literally on a cliff that overlooked the ocean! Never in my life will I be at a train station with such a view! I was so amazed at how beautiful this place was! I had heard that it was gorgeous but until I saw it, I had no idea! We walked up the hill and found our hostel and this little old lady helped us find our room which was 135 steps up the hill! We had all of our luggage, so our hearts were pounding when we got to the apartment! We put our stuff down and then I opened up the window in our room and gasped! We had an AMAZING view of the ocean and the mountains! We ate at a litte cafe in town and we had the best lasagne we had ever had! Cinque Terre is know for having the best pesto and we got pesto lasagne! Incredible!
The weather on Friday was perfect! The sun was out and warm with a slight breeze! Pefect hiking weather! We hiked from Riomaggiore to Manarola and then part of the way to Corniglia, but had to go back to the train station in Manarola b/c of a landslide. We took the train to Corniglia and then hiked 382 steps up to the city! Quite a staircase! Once we got to the top, we still had to walk uphill to the trail that lead to the next city. The trail was really pretty and followed the coastline the whole way. It took us almost 2 hours to reach Vernazza. We ate pesto pizza and went to the water. We took pictures on the rocks and the beach while some people climbed the tower of the little castle. Then we took a train to the last city, Monterosso b/c it was getting late and we were all tired! Once we got there, we skipped rocks into the ocean and I got sand to take back! Then Kay Lee and I made a video of us running into the ocean! It was pretty chilly! Then Katherine, Meiko, Dana, and I stayed and watched the sunset. Then we went back to Riomaggiore and split a bowl of Ravioli from the guy's restaurant across the street from the hostel! It was delicious! Every night we were there, we went to bed at like 10PM b/c we were so tired! We felt like we were in Elementary School again! ha
Most of the group went back on Sat. but Kay Lee and Teal and I stayed one more day. It was overcast on Sat. so we decided to take trains instead of walk the trails in case it rained. We got a round trip ticket to the last city and back and stopped at each one to shop and look around. The cities were so cute and little. Every family had a shop and their boat was in front of their shop and house is right above the shop with laundry hanging out the window! It was so quaint! We met these two old women who were sisters from Arkansas and it was fun just to hear a real twangy accent! When we got back to Riomaggiore, the girls were tired, so they went to the room, but I wanted to explore some more. So, I was looking out at the ocean from the train station and I realized that there was a gate along the edge. So, I walked over to it and followed the trail. When I rounded the corner, I realized that we had missed the most beautiful part of our city we were staying at. I was so glad that I had decided to look around. There was a rock beach and places to hike all along the coast. The rock beach sounded so cool when the water washed up on the rocks and then made its way around the rocks back into the ocean! You could also climb down the rocks on a path to the water! I climbed down and sat on a rock and watched the waves crash against the rocks around me. Apparently there was a cave right behind me that was covered up by the rock I was sitting on b/c I could hear the waves wash up and then crash on the rock wall behind me. It scared me at first! I thought the rock behind me was crashing down, but the water was just so powerful and the hollowness of the hole made it that much louder! It was incredible! Then I started feeling bad that I was down there and the girls were missing something so amazing, so I sprinted back up to our room! Let me tell you that this is not a simple task! I wanted to get them back down there before the sun set and I knew I didn't have much time. First of all, I had to quickly walk back up the trail to the train station and then I had to climb up the hill to the city and then up the 135 steps to our room. Once I got there, they were laying in bed. I tried to tell them quickly through my heavy breathing that we had completely missed the coastline in our city! The other cities were amazing, but we had joked that our city didn't have much. Boy were we wrong. I felt for sure that they would knock me over at the chance to see the sunset on the beach, but they both said they were tired. Kay Lee changed her mind and came and found me on the beach and we went and sat on some rocks and watched the sunset and it was gorgeous! I'm so glad we decided to go!
The next day was probably the most stressful day of my life! Ha! I'll tell the short version since these blogs have turned into novels! We got up early and even got to the train station early, but what we hadn't realized and what no one had told us was that during the night while we were sleeping, the time had changed. It was one hour later than we thought, so we had missed our train! We had to catch another train to a bigger train station that left in 4 minutes! We barely made it(I mean literally, I had to buy and validate the tickets while the others got on the train and I jumped on the train and the door shut behind me!) What we didn't know was that this was just a glimpse of the stress that was about to unfold before us! When we got to La Spezia, the train we wanted was on strike, so we had to wait another hour until our train came. We met 2 girls from Michigan who were on our same flight, so they tagged along with us. Then we had a 2 hour train ride to Genova. Once we got there, we got off and ran into 3 other girls from our group that were on the same flight too! So our group was now up to 9 people! We found out that we had to take a bus to the airport but that they only left from a different train station in town. So, we had to take another train to that train station and it left in 4 minutes again! So, we ran to that train and barely caught it too! Once we got to the train station, we realized that the buses didn't leave for another half hour. We got to the airport at 12:44 and our flight left at 1:20! They close check in 40 minutes before departure and we had missed it by 4 minutes! We were so upset! By that time, we had a girl from Norway tag onto our group so we had 10 people on the same flight all late, so this guy finally said that he would give us a present by letting us on! We literally jumped up and down and screamed and thanked him repeatedly. Once we landed in Stansted, our flight was 45 minutes delayed, so we only had 10 minutes to go through baggage claim and find our bus! We barely made it in time! Surprise surprise! We got to Victoria Coach Station in London and our connecting bus wouldn't take our tickets, so we had to stand in a long line and the lady had to manually print them off! Ha! Then we finally got back to the house about 8:30PM! The whole day felt like Planes, Trains, and Automobiles and Home Alone all in one day! We had all of our luggage and were running everywhere we went all day! Now that I think back on it, I laugh but at the time, it was a nightmare!
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