Cinque Terre

It was tough getting out of bed this morning because it was so comfortable! The air in our room was chilly and being under four blankets was super cozy, but we got up, dressed and found ourselves some sandwiches for lunch at the pizza place next door. We then headed to the train station to head to Monterroso, the most northern of the five villages. We knew Monterroso was the most touristy of the villages so we didn't do much exploring, we really just wanted to start our hike.

Long story short... we hiked probably 1000+ stairs today (easily!) and at times were huffing and puffing so badly we thought we'd keel over! Good thing our recovery time is so good! The sun was so warm that I was in a tank top with my pants rolled up and still managed to sweat through everything. It was disgusting. What made it all worthwhile though, was the view. Wow. Because we were up so high, we overlooked the ocean and at times the other villages... gorgeous, just stunning. I took lots of pictures.

Our first hike took about two and a half hours to go three kilometers and we arrived to the second village, Vernazza. We took a break with (very delicious) gelato and beer :) then we found the trail leading us back to our village. That trail took about an hour and a half to go four kilometers. Both were tough journeys to say the least. At one point I asked Jeff what the time was and as we rounded another corner he said, "Stairs-o'clock". They seemed to be never ending and was a source of conversation with most people we met along the way (many North Americans and people we just seem to keep bumping into!).

By the time we got back to Corniglia, we were pretty beat and my knee was aching something awful. We decided to get cash from the bank so we could pay for our room tomorrow as we only had €20 on us. It then all went downhill... the machine didn't work and was the only one around so we walked to the train station (practically 20 minutes of stairs downhill - not good for my knee so it took awhile with my brace) thinking there might be one there, nope, so we took the train to La Spezia where we thought they'd have a machine in their station, nope. We had to wander into a very busy and crowded town looking for banks on a Saturday night. Three machines later and neither Jeff nor my card worked (insert panic here), something about some our cards not usable... link unavailable... urgh. I was able to use my visa though (with the $5 service charge attached and all that other jazz, urgh!) but at least we were able to get some cash.  The bank machines in Italy have been problematic for us and we're not sure what the problem is.

We practically ran (me with a bum knee) back to the train station so we wouldn't miss it and took the twenty minute ride back home. Thankfully, we arrived at the perfect time to get the last shuttle into town, so we wouldn't have to walk twenty minutes uphill to get to our place (we had forgotten how far it was and were truly grateful that we made it in time for the shuttle).

We picked up two pizzas for dinner and some sandwiches for tomorrow's lunch and inhaled them after we each had a shower.

It's now nearly bedtime as we're truly beat and are meeting the guy who owns the place we're staying tomorrow morning before hiking the last two trails.

Sweet dreams!

Amanda

P.S. My ipod has been resurrected somehow! Yay!
P.P.S. Jeff has just now, as I started writing, started reading the book I started yesterday... urgh... now we'll both be trying to read it! lol