3:00 in the AM: We make it home from sightseeing at the Fontain de Treve with Flavio and friends.
3:10 in the AM: Heads hit the pillow because we have a 6am train. At this moment Haley and Lindsay start getting their rail passes out for the Cinque Terra...Ashley pops up and asks if we need some sort of ticket. Haley says ... "You're kidding right?" Ashley- "What? You're kidding." We soon realize that Ashley has no actual ticket for our train that leaves in 3 hrs. This would not be a big deal in the U.S….however with no internet access…too early for an internet café…and the lack of a ticket should mean no entry not to mention the disclaimer for “no refund for lost or stolen tickets”…let’s just say we were up a creek! We set the alarm for 45 min of sleep to get up and figure things out.
4:00 in the AM: After 45 min of sleeping we wake up and get ready to figure things out. We go to the neighbor hotel and knock on the door to beg (and by beg we mean “pay-off”) the desk clerk to let us use his internet bc we have an emergency. We get the confirmation and try to take it to the train station… and oh by the way Lindsay had to spend most of the time trying to figure out if we’re even at the right train station while Haley and I are on a mission to get to the office and beg for a ticket. The next hiccup is that the office doesn’t open until 6am when our train leaves. As this story should go…we had a homeless man that showed us the right “bin” for our train and she also has the bright idea that I should just be a “stowaway” on the train bc they don’t check tickets until we’ve already departed. At this point it’s do or die…we don’t know if being on without a real ticket could result in getting kicked off or arrested….but we’re all in this together! Needless to say we worked our charm with the Italian men…and made it to the Cinque Terra. Keep in mind this is our third day on 5 hrs of sleep so far.
10:00 am: We deliriously arrive in the Cinque Terra after having to “canoodle” on the train ride bc apparently the Eurotrain challenges a good game of “freeze out!” At one point Haley looks back and Ashley was playing big spoon to Lindsay to try to keep warm! Upon arrival we are ashamed to admit that we were overly ecstatic to find a “MacDonalds” … the idea of having something “American” had never sounded so good! We take a train village to village and let’s just say the beauty was indescribable! The Mediterranean was the most beautiful body of water we had ever seen…completely turquoise with the perfect combination of a Hawaiian terrain and European splendor! We were so preoccupied with our train situation we totally forgot to bring a swimsuit….but we were bound and determined to get in the water. You ask our solution? A paddleboat of course! We get out on the water and lesson of the day … let’s just say Europeans definitely consider the human body a “work of art!”
As you all know we are quite the outdoorsmen… so naturally we attempt to hike from one village to the next. This seemed to be a leisurely scenic tour but quickly shaped up to be designed to teach us how out of shape we are. No water, one blister, and twenty minutes later we realize we have just started a 2 hr hike according to other hikers. We can imagine your surprise to realize we weren’t quite the outdoorsmen we thought we were!
The third village we go to we spend a total of 12 minutes playing “Magellan” and discovering the new village…we are on a quest for one solitary restaurant with air conditioning so we can eat (and by eat we mean order so we can sleep at a table). If you haven’t picked up on the fact that air conditioning is a commodity in certain spots of Italy…let me take the opportunity to reiterate this. After asking locals, American tourists and trying out most of the town we decide that we will settle for some hot steps on one of the main streets. Bc we were on 1 hr of sleep we collectively and simultaneously fell asleep. When you’re this tired we learned that a water bottle tends to make a pretty nice pillow…I hope that illustrates how deliriously tired we were. After a cat nap we decide to go to dinner and instinctively sit at a table served by a waiter that has Haley and Ashley mesmerized. Apparently being swept off your feet can lead to yet ANOTHER instance of running to catch our train that connects to our train going to Rome. After barely making the first train we made our connection with only 5 minutes to spare. Keep in mind missing this train would have ruined the trip… we not only would have missed getting back to Rome that night but also our flight for Greece the next day. Low and behold adrenaline rush of being late still led to us successfully making the train and an extra 3 hr ride to try to catch up on sleep…have I mentioned this too is a commodity?! We made it home safely at midnight … everything was so worth seeing such a remarkable series of villages!
Ashley, Haley & Lindsay signing off!
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