Risky Business

          So it has been a pretty interesting day to say the least! We all slept in for once which was sooo nice! Once we got up, we grabbed some lunch and hiked over to Monterosso, one of the main 5 towns in Cinque Terre. The hike was gorgeous! We were told it was a beginner’s hike which was a big lie. Over the course of 2 hours, we ended up climbing some mountains and got to a pretty high elevation. As much as it was work, it was well worth it!

By the time we got to Monterosso, the weather finally cleared up and we finally saw sun! We walked around some and Amy and I decided to pay a couple of the other towns a visit. We got a train ticket to Vernazza, the next town over, walked around a little, and left because there was not much to do/ not much was open. Cinque Terre faced some pretty bad mudslides back in October and November and Vernazza was especially hard hit and still recovering. We decided to go over to Manarola, two towns from Vernazza, and got some dinner and coffee.

(Manarola)

When we got to the train station in Manarola to lead to Levanto, we were expecting to meet up with two girls who went to Manarola with us. But, they did they own thing while we got dinner and we didn’t see them at the train station after dinner so we figured they got an earlier train. Amy and I tried to go find a kiosk to get our tickets because the office was closed. Apparently, they don’t like them in Manarola because there were none. We were going to have to risk it and ride the train ticketless and pray to God we wouldn’t get asked to show them. The train came, we got on. We got on a first class car on accident. As the train approached the next town, we saw a person in a TrenItalia uniform and about peed in our pants. We immediately get up to get off at the stop. He followed us off the car like he suspected we didn't have tickets, whoops! So there we are, at the train station at 9:00pm, 365 steps (or something close--still ridiculous) down a hill from the actual town of Corniglia. And the next train doesn’t come for an hour. Fantastic. We found a kiosk at that train station to get tickets because Lord knows I was NOT going through that again. The kiosk doesn't work. Even better. So there we were once again ticketless with no way of getting tickets. After a rant of frustration and panic that we were going to get hauled off to jail with a 200 euro fine (I may have been exaggerating a little), I finally found some composure to get through the next 40 minutes until the train came. This time, we got on a second-class car and safely made it back to Levanto. What a night!

(me ranting, thanks Amy for taking a picture)