Tale of 5 Cities
Italy Part 1
I met Steve outside the Duomo in Florence. I had been waiting for a while, as he and Garrett had been getting gelato on the other side of town- priorities. Steve's been living in Germany going to Bodenseehof Bible School, the same school I went to 4 years ago. Over break he and Garrett (a Californian Boder) were doing their tour of Italy including Venice, Naples, Pompeii, Rome, which was a very similar trail that I had taken with Katya, Katie and Charis. I wouldn't have guessed at that time that I'd ever get back here, but getting off the train Florence instantly felt faintly familiar and I could find my way well enough. First order of business was getting me gelato too, and for this trip I once again began keeping a gelato journal including date, city, and flavours. Properly equipped with a peach mango cup we then just walked around until we caught our train to La Spezia. There was a bit of a hiccup when I learned that upon returning to Florence we would only have a hostel for one night instead of the 5 we were actually there for, so that was a lovely little scramble but it all worked out.
Since I took so many pictures over these 3 weeks (2878 to be exact) my nice pretty ones are on my regular page under Travel, the photos here will be all the touristy ones of us in front of stuff. Check them out!
Our first full day we did our trek of La Cinque Terra. On my first trip to Italy we had planned to come but storms and mudslides had rendered that a bad idea. Rachael said it was one of her favourite places so I was super stoked to finally come. There's a train that connects them all and since the hikes were about 2 hours we opted for the quicker route to make sure we saw everything. We were one small group amoung a much larger tourist hoard, making our main goal to stay ahead of the oriental assembly, armed to the teeth with selfie sticks and iPads, and who tended to block the already narrow passages. First stop was Riomaggiore, and even from the train station platform the view was beautiful. We walked down the the harbour, scrambled other the rocks to get the sea view of the little town in all it's quaint, colourful charm.
Next up was Manerola, my favourite as you could get the best view of the town from a nearby hill. Garrett was amused by my offering to take other people's tourist picture for them and I explained my two-fold purpose: one then we can ask them to return the favour and two, it aids the crusade against unnecessary selfies. We hiked around the coast and along the path, it was so gorgeous. It reminded me of Capri; the blue water, the pastel buildings and just loving every direction you look. Steve and I talked about our 'Canadianisms' and stereotype moments abroad; I was surprised when I found out Americans don't normally have cornbread with syrup, and, when prompted by Alexis, without even blinking I answered immediately to my favourite doughnut (Boston creme if anyone's dying to know), much to her amusement. Steve had been trying to describe a wagon wheel (a packaged snack) to Garrett as being 'about the size of a puck' and realized that that's not a standard unit of measurement. (Even explaining this story to Esther who's from France, I had to explain what a puck was, which has never happened to me before.)
Corniglia was next but from the train station to get to the town centre you had to climb a massive switchbacked hill. But lo and behold there was an open gelato place at the top! Made it all worth it. Lacking an ocean vista, I feel like the main beauty of this town would be in the rolling green terraced hills and vineyards but with it being December and all there wasn't as much to see. On the plus side, Garett now knows the word 'gelato', before he had just referred to it as 'gelatin,' which Steven just enjoyed and never bothered to correct him.
We spent a longer time in Viarezzo, bought a couple pizzas and sat on the dock, munching happily and listening to "Into the West" playing from Garrett's phone. Steve was looking with envy at the bits of pizza that some of the tourists were throwing to the fish schools and begging seagulls. Other than the docks there was a church along the waterside that we wandered into. This town we explored a bit farther inland, heading upwards through the narrow warren-like stairways bringing us to an amazing surveying look of the town and countryside next to an old monastery.
The final stop was Monterosso, not so much of a town to see but a really lovely beach. Propped up on our backpacks with sand between our toes we watched the sun set behind the hills and the clouds turn all pink. We caught the train back to Manerola for supper, Steve had fun doing a Mr. Bean impersonation with the shrimp on his plate and I'm pretty sure 'al dente' is Italian for 'undercooked but we'll make this seem intentional.' Walking back Steve and I were remarking on how it was getting a bit chilly and we may need to get our coats out again, we look over at Garrett who is completely bundled up in a few layers, hand buried deep in his pockets with his toque on and a scarf wrapped around his face muttering something about crazy Canadians under his breath. We caught our train back to Florence, and then a surprise 5 km hike to our hostel, where we arrived after midnight with a few new blisters on our feet. The glamours of travel.
