9:00 am – sitting in bed
Bwige is retuning the snorkels. I just got up, again. It stormed last night and I got up at 3:30 and watched and took pictures until 6:30. I kept wanting to go to bed but as soon as I would put my camera down, something new would happen or the storm would start up again and taunt me to get more pretty pictures. Oh well… A few of them turned out really really well. Some were pretty and blue, some had lightning in them. Yah! I don't know how much hiking we are going to do since its still drizzling. We shall see…
10:00 pm – sitting in bed
We are back. What a long day. I am happy that I got to sleep a few more hours before I had to get up. We got up and went down to the ticket office only to find that the road between Riomaggiore (#1, where we were) and Manorola (#2) to Corniglia (#3) was closed. This was not good since we had hoped to hike all 4 paths. Oh well.
So we started off and hiked from Riomaggiore (#1, where we were) to Manorola. This path is the Via dell’ Amore, the Path of Love. We walked along it and, just because we were supposed to, kissed pretty often. We had to because there were guards walking around and handing out tickets to couples who were not kissing! Then, to get extra ticket protection, when there was a place where you could climb up a bit to a picnic area, we climbed to the top and sat and kissed for a while. HA! Just TRY and give us a ticket!!
The walk was very pretty. It ran along the cliff above the ocean. There were lots of pretty places to take pictures (which I did) and lots of flowers to take pictures of (which I did). The path, however, was very flat and easy. There was almost no climbing or steep ascents… just all smooth sailing, I mean walking.
One thing that was very disappointing has been the graffiti everywhere. People just write on the walls and steps, and seats, and plants… its disgusting. How rude to ruin a beautiful place with ‘Andre wuz here.’ Not only here in the Chinque Terra, but in Rome. People wrote on the walls of St. Peters and the Pantheon. I mean really! How low class can you get! Do you have no soul or respect for anything in life? I would be totally enthused if they would put up cameras and as the violators left the site, threw them in jail for a while, maybe 1 year… that way, others would get the point that HEY!, this thing is important and NO, you are not the center of the universe so that you can do whatever the heck you want! So frustrating.
Anyways… The walk of love took less than an hour (even though I was taking a ridiculous number of pictures) and we arrived in Manorola without incident. When we got there, there was a bus to the top of the hill. As can be expected, the person ahead of me was allowed on but I wasn’t. So SOMEONE (*coughBrigettecough*) suggested that we just walk. Yah. Great suggestion. The walk was pretty much straight up a hill, but since that would have been too steep, they did switchbacks. Lots of switchbacks. 385 steps worth of switchbacks. Oh well, I needed the exercise anyway to work off all the gelato we have been eating.
And speaking of steps… we took the train from town #2 to #3 so we could walk from #3 to #4 and began that hike. And what a hike it was. (One side note is that before finding the footpath to town #4 we started walking down the car path to #4. I mention this because I saw some passion flowers! Yah! I love passion flowers. They are my favorite flower! They are so pretty. They used to grow on the TV antenna in the back of Grandma’s house and I fell in love with them!) The hike from Corniglia (#3) to Vernazza (#4) was supposed to take an hour and a half. It took us a little over 2 hours. Can you guess why? (if you didn’t guess that I was taking a ridiculous number of pictures you should feel very ashamed of yourself because you know absolutely nothing about me and you have deeply hurt my feelings)
This path was much harder than the first. There was lots of steep climbing and long ascents. It was not, however, that technically difficult (there was no 1 foot wide path where you inch along sideways), it was just long. I would guesstimate about 4000 - 5000 steps.
I think my favorite part of the hike (which has been my favorite so far) was the blue water. The water is just such a beautiful deep blue here. On top of that, its clear! You can actually see the bottom (being from Texas I had no idea what that was like). But the cream of the crop was the little sections of teal blue water right around the coast. (I’ll show pictures later). It was just so beautiful. I cant wait to see those pictures.
OK, one note for this part of the day. Both of the best views on the trek were on the paths to the nude beach (no, we didn’t go down there, we just went down the path a little cuz the view was so good). And although I considered naming the blog for this day ‘An Afternoon on the Path to the Nude Beach’ I decided otherwise. Haha.
Oh, and we have seen lots of Germans on this trip. From what we hear, the Germans all travel extensively in the summer (maybe because they get 6 weeks paid vacation every year). So my question is… is there anyone actually in Germany during the summer? Hmm…. *note to self, on my quest to be Overlord of the Universe, make sure to invade Germany during the summer….*
Well, the next part of the trip was dinner in Vernazza after watching the goobers at the dock. That was interesting. Since there was a storm coming, the waves were pretty high. Again, perfect for picture-crazy Fluffy. The waves were high enough that they would crash against the docks and make a pretty high spray (the dock is a solid cement block, not a wooden platform on pillars). A few college age guys were sitting on the edge with their legs hanging over. They would wait for a big wave to wash over the dock and throw them backwards. They were getting a bit banged up but seemed to be enjoying it.
A few times it actually rolled them about 6 or 8 feet backwards. But again, they seemed to be enjoying it. And hey, it made for good pictures.
OK, now is a good time to insert an explinaiton on how I took 2500 pictures in 1 day. I take 2 types of pictures. First, is, ‘Oh look a flower, click click click.” That type is normal picture taking. The second type however, is more movie style; I hold down the shutter button and it takes 5 pictures a second (50 at a time). I like to take those and then later put them together into little mini motion movie thingies. I take those for things like the ocean moving around the rocks, boats moving in the water, trains coming straight at me…. So, I don’t know exactly the breakdown, but at least 1000 of the pictures were of type 1. I think today is probably my record for number of pictures taken in 1 day! I am very proud of myself, especially since I am going to miss my projected goal 20,000 pictures. My more realistic goal is now 10,000. I am a little over half way there (between 6k and 7k). However, I should make quota because the next few days will be spent in the mountains and I hope to take lots of nice pictures.
After watching the boys get washed onto shore, we headed up the hill into town to get dinner. By this time, Bwige was tired and getting quite hungry. I say this just because I wanted to comment on how cute Bwige gets when shes tired. Her eyes get all big like a little puppy and she is just so CUTE!
Anyways… we ate pizza for dinner. Yum, I had pesto and mushroom and Bwige had sausage and mushroom. (She says that the pizza hasn’t been that good since Rome and that this was the first pizza she has liked since then. I think its all about the same.) We also each had a bottle of peach juice with our pizza. Arg, one of the most frustrating things here in Italy is the drink situation. You pay for freaking everything! Its so dumb. If you want water, you pay for it because it comes in a bottle. If you ask for Aqua Rubineto (tap water) they look at you like you are crazy. And a couple of times, they just bring you bottled water anyway. And it is expensive too, like 2 Euros ($2.50). So yah, its usually about the same price to get water or wine. (however, I think I’ve decided to give up my quest to like wine once we get home from Italy… its not very good and just empty calories) The other thing is that most restaurants have a 2 or 3 Euro cover charge (a charge for sitting down and breathing). That’s frustrating. And the cokes (which I don’t drink much at home anyway) are even more expensive. 1.5 Euros for a can of coke. Yes, a can. Not a cup with free refills, but a can. Its ridiculous because you have to drink something with your meal but its going to cost you $5 one way or another. Arg.
Another thing that I haven’t liked about the food here is the bread. Pretty much every load of break we’ve had has really hard crust. The inside is nice and soft, but the crust is hard to chew. That’s probably the worst part of the food here. (however, it was a little better in Tuscany because they don’t put salt in the bread. A long time ago someone taxed the salt heavily and so they rebelled and have not used salt in their bread ever since… oddly enough, when you take out the salt, the bread can last for like a week and a half! Wow… no preservatives and it still lasts. I would think that the salt (a preservative) would make it last longer. Live and learn)
Yum… Italian food is so good! I am learning lots of new ways to cook things.. like, get this, spaghetti without tomato sauce. Yah, whoda thunk? They just put on a bit of olive oil and salt. Its actually pretty tasty too! Another thing is the pesto. Man its good! And they put it on pizza as a topping! (however, in regards to the pizza, it seems that they usually do just 1 topping instead of lots like we do).
Alas, however, I am craving new types of food. It seems that the menus have been pretty much the same since we arrived in Italy (other than adding a bit of seafood when we are by the coast). Spaghetti and pizza really are their main fares. It seems like in the US, there are lots of different types of food. You go to Chili’s and you can get Burgers, Italian, Asian, Mexican…. But here its just all Italian. We have seen little to no other choices. We did see some Greek food in Rome and Florence, but those are the bigger towns. Like Bwige, I am starting to crave Mexican food… we are just getting tired of having the same thing all the time. Oh well, we will be home soon. Plus, we are traveling to a totally different part of the country tomorrow so hopefully their pallets will change as well.
Another thing we crave is companionship. We are traveling alone and, while we really enjoy each other’s company, crave other people to talk to. We have been looking but haven’t found anyone else to travel with. We have even been trying to branch out and talk to other people, but we just haven’t come in contact with that many English speaking people. Oh well…
After dinner we went and watched the men pull the boats in from the harbor because of the storm. They would pull them up to the shore and attach a rope to the front. The rope went all the way up the ramp to a pulley in the square which was attached to a wench to the side. The wench was only a large circular pice of metal that turned on the top. When the rope was wrapped around it 3 times, it had the friction it needed to pull the boat up. Afterwards, they would put the boats on little flat dollies and line them up in the square. However, some people took them up the hill into town, a few even carried them up the hill. Geez. (these were little rowboats, not big boats… lol, a bunch of guys carrying an ocean liner…yah)
We then caught a train home to Riomaggiore. When we got there we called Tom, the guy we are staying with tomorrow night, and talked to his mom. She said to call him back in 10 minutes. So we went and sat to wait. Another guy went into the phone booth right after us and came out and asked us if the phone had worked for us. Apparently, it died after we used it. It said it was out of service…. So we searched for another phone and finally found one. It was dead. We did find another one and while waiting talked to a girl from Seattle. She commented on Brigette’s shirt (University of California, Santa Cruize) whose mascot is the Banana Slugs. She said that wherever it crawls on you, the banana slug makes your skin numb. So… a fun game to play is to get together with a few of your friends and pool your money to pay an unsuspecting freshmen to lick a slug for $10. So, to their surprise, besides the odd taste of slug slime, they get a numb tongue and cant talk the rest of the night. Lol, $10 well invested!
OK, that’s the interesting things from the day. Hope you are enjoying!
Oh, and one last set of steps… already said it was 150 steps from the street to our room. We its another 150 from the beach to the street. Yah, no fat Italians around here!
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