I had looked up the schedules and prices online and figured out that if we took the 7.49 am train, it was only 10 euro, so we decided to get up super early and make that train! Well, turns out, trenitalia changed the schedule and prices on us and the train was now at 7.28 amd cost 21 euro. The next 10 euro train was at 10.30. We didn't make up out minds (wether or not to purchase the more expensive train ticket) fast enough anyways, so we missed the first train. We decided we were going to wait in line (since the next train did not leave for at least 2 hours) and get some help. We also were not exactly sure what town we should take the train to....
So we waited in line, and low and behold, got the lady that did not speak english. GREAT. We tried to comunicate and failed. She told us to go to plataform 5 and get "tourist information". We did, and they were not very helpful either.
We decided we were going to take the train to Riomangiore (the 1st town in Cinque Terre) and bought it on the self-service machines. I put in my card, it spit out our boarding pass and returned my card and said there was an error. We were terribly confused, since we had the boarding pass for the train... we still don't know if we got charged for the ticket or not. Oh well. I guess we win this one, trenitalia. When we saw the train ticket we realized it did not have a time or date on it. Great, now what? We decided to wait in line, one more time, since our train did not leave until 10.00 am. It was about 8.00 am at this point. We waited in line and got the lady that DID speak english. GREAT. She told us our ticket was "open ended" and that we just had to stamp it on these yellow machines. We then bought a ticket back from Monterosso, the last town in Cinque Terre back to Florence. So we had both train tickets, now we just had to wait and hope we found the correct train.
Luckily, the golden arches (McDonalds) were there to save the day. I had a capuccino and a very good muffin, Laura got coffee and we sat and waited. Lizz and her crew actually showed up and were suprised we were still there. Lizz had a similiar (probably 10x worse, actually) experience in Madrid so she undestood us! After waiting until it was exactly 9.30 so Laura could get some chicken nuggs (yes, breakfast of champions?), getting yelled at for having our feet on the table, we went and found our train. We stamped our tickets and got some seats. Our trian was to La Spetzia, where we woudl change trains to Riomangiore. The train was sort of subway-ish because it stoped every 20 or so minutes. We got to La Spetzia where we bought a ticket to Cinque Terre and found out that, well we only needed a train to and from La Spetzia since the Cinque Terre ticket included a little train from La Spetiza to all 5 towns, great.
Again, golden arches saved the day, I got some water and Chicken Nuggs (it was noon at this point) because we decided we were not eating until town #4. We finally arrived to Riomangiore and the views made all the hassle worth it. Amazing. We did the first "hike" and then took the train from town #2 all the way to town #4 and skiped the hike from Corniglia (#3) to Vernazza (#4) because we wanted to do the last one (Vernazza to Monterosso) which is the longest one and still have time to swim. We had some delicious pizza in Vernazza overlooking the ocean and then found the trail and started hiking.
The hike was AMAZING. The views are unreal and it just felt great to be outside. Throughout the hike Laura kept asking "wiser" people to take our picture, and well, none of them got a good shot. I think we have 1 good picture of the two of us after like 5 tries. We should have learned our lesson when we asked the two old ladies to take a picture of us in Fiesole and they almost took a picture of themselves.
We finally arrived in Monteross and insted of going to the public beaches, we just decided to go on some rocks we found and swim there. It was amazing,. The water felt great, it was fun to treck thorugh the rocks and we did not have to worry about our stuff being stolen. After a while in the water we went looking for a public shower to rinse of the salt water ( I did and Laura didn't, and I can BET she regreted it), and then explored Monterosso. We got some cute postcards and shot glases (I am getting a post card and shot glass from every place I visit) and then found a supermarket where we got some foccacia bread, sun-dried tomatoes and brie. Laura also decided to get this "wine" that 1. Had a plastic cork (since we didnt have a wine opener) and 2. Wasn't even labled. She was convinced it was Cinque Terre wine, I thought it was moonshine.
We ate our little dinner on benches overlooking the ocean and then headed to the train station. Laura decided to open her "wine" and to her surprise it was sparkling. So now she was covered in sweat, salt and wine. So attractive. A nice, yet a little creepy, italian man have us a tissue so she could sort of clean up. Turns out this "wine" did not smell very good but tasted just fine. We decided it probably WAS Cinque Terre local wine, or that is what we are going to keep telling ourselves. Our train finally arrived and we were on our way. The train ride was actually worth the extra 5 euro because it did not stop as much as our trian there, thus making our way back only 1 hour to Pisa (where we switched trains and had THE HARDEST TIME finding our 2nd trian, since we had failed to realize we were going from an intercity train to a regionale trian, so it was in a different plataform) and then 1 hour straight to Florence, as opposed to three hours, stoping every 20 minutes. Upon arriving to S.M.N train station, golden arches saved the day once again, because we both really wanted to go to the bathroom. Aftera full day of adventures we decided that it was totally worth going to Cinque Terre on our own because:
1. We could say we used the train system in Italy, on our own
2. Cinque Terre was amazing, worth the hassle.
3. We saved at least 3 euro.... maybe more depending on if we actually paid for out first train tickets
4. We had local wine
After an eventful Saturday I turn in early and went to bed, exahusted.
Sunday I went to church and we were trying to partake in Winetown Florence, but a cheap chineese restaurant crossed paths with us and Laura and I experienced our first food coma. We still had enough energy to navigate around the toursit and make it to a very good gelateria to put the finishing touch on our food coma. We walked around some, went into H&M and laughed at a lady for opening an umbrella inside, only to go outside and relize it was about to rain.
Damn it, karma.
We powerwalked home, but still got some of the rain. It was a nice, lazy sunday that finished with some homework and delicious dinner!
So all in all.... succesful weekend in Florence!
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