I can’t quite remember what I wrote last time, but I’m currently in Riomaggiore. Its my second night here. So possibly the last time I left off was in Florence. So the last night in Florence was a quite one since we had an early train out the next day (which didn’t really happen) to Pisa and then to La Spezia and then to Cinque Terre. So we headed to the Duomo and had to queue up for that. It just wasnt that great… We did however, and stupidly, climb the tower next to it. 400+ steps. It had the best view of Florence though. I’ve got a few pictures of that. In climbing this tower, we ended up trying to race back to our accommodation to grab our bags and back to the train station. When we got back to the hostel, we ended up 5 minutes out from catching the train, and we decided it just wasn’t going to happen. So instead, we went for a swim in the pool. As left after about 40 minutes (train comes every hour), we decided to grab a feed since we hadn’t had breakfast. Found ourselves an asian take out place and grabbed ourselves sweet and sour pork… it took about 10 minutes to make! And so we missed out train… for sweet and sour pork… which I guess ended up being worth it, but just not at the time since we ran with our backpacks to the station.
Train to Pisa took about an hour, and the walk to the actual leaning tower was about 20-25 minutes. As you arrive, EVERYONE is holding a stupid pose. It’s quite funny to watch, until you have to do it. I guess its a must do. The square in which its in is quite small. Nice buildings, but nothing else there.
Then we trained it to La Spezia and onto Riomaggiore. Found our accommodation. Its a bit of a shock the space allocation we’ve been given. Basically, its like a really small apartment. Kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, living room and a second bedroom. All livable rooms have at least 3 beds in it. The living room has 5 and no windows. Company is nice here, main aussies who are heading off to live in London and wanted a quick break before work begins.
Last night, we had dinner with a few people in our “dorm”. It was at a restaurant – the portion just wasn’t enough… it was then followed by drinks on the rocks next to the water. It was quite nice and cool. Had an awesome view of the buildings as well as the ocean.
Today, woke up early enough to get a move on with the walking track. Total walking time for all 5 towns was 3 and a half hours. We stopped in Vernazza for a lie down on the rocks. The weather turned out alright for the walk. We ended up getting to Monterosso and it was cold enough that we didnt need to or want to hop into the water at the beach there. The walk was amazing. It is actually quite scenic. The last section took about an hour and a half. Some people recommend doing it from Monterosso to Riomaggiore, so you get the hard bit over and done with first, but theres not much reward to end up in Riomaggiore. The first 3 towns are a breeze to walk. If you start at Monterosso, there are a tonne of uphill steps right at the beginning, which would basically wear you out considerably.
Just had pizza for dinner, shower soon – the weather isn’t the best to be out at the rocks again tonight, but we’ll see about that.We’ll then be off at 10am tomorrow to hop on a train to Genoa and then onto Nice and should arrive at abuot 4pm.
I’ve gone through all the CF cards I’ve got on me, so its time to start recycling, and I’ll have to double check all my cards tonight to make sure I’ve got all the photos saved before I hit the format button.
Nearly 3000 photos right now… and only 2 weeks have gone! I currently cant say I’ve got too many amazing photos, but enough I’m sure to satisfy me.
Written by Milton Lai