Really that was our day. We took 5 trains and a bus. We found a train to Genoa and thought what the hell….we’ve spent most of the day on a train anyways and it would bring us closer to Cinque Terre.

On the last train to Genoa we met an Italian dude. Peter offered him some wine and we were instant friends. He didn’t speak much English…so we all tried to communicate in Spanish, Italian and a little English. As far as I could understand he said his family is in the mafia (he mentioned Martin Scorsese films as reference) and is traveling to get away from his life in Naples. He said it was too violent. He also said he has our back from people on the train. Hhhahahah he rocked. When Peter went to the bathroom he left the compartment…he wouldn’t stay with me by himself out of respect to Peter….hahhah interesting guy. He never told us his name.

Arrival in Genoa midnight…..we stayed at a place I found online and it basically sucked. Go me. The bathroom was so nasty we refused to take showers and my pillow was full of lumps…nasty. We didn’t get much sleep.

The morning after (isn’t that a movie title)

We headed to Cinque Terre to the city of Vernazza. We took one step off the train and were bombarded by a man named Francesco about a place to stay. I’m not one to deal with train station solicitors, but the more we said no, the more the price went down. Some locals hanging out told us to look at the room and that Francesco was ok to deal with….so we thought what the hell. Anyways, the place rocked, it was an apartment with a kitchen (including coffee), a big room, fabulous bed, nice bathroom and the real winner was the washing machine. We got the whole place for 40 euros a night…what a steal and we could clean our stinky clothes.

That done we checked out the city and I have to say Jamie’s explanation of Cinque Terra; “it’s like living in a postcard” is dead on. Wow…and wow. Our pics can’t do it justice.

The Cinque Terra is five cities on the coast….most people hike to and from the cities or take a train. We like to hike. We decided to hike to the fifth city, Monterosso and well…we took the wrong trail and went straight up the hill. Figures eh?
We saw some interesting things…a graveyard with photos of the deceased on the gravestones, a creepy chapel that was locked and gated off and each turn on the road had a shrine with scenes from the life of Jesus. Hmmm.

A few hours in we had to head back; the sun was starting to set. We made it to the water’s edge to watch the sun sink and then headed to a bar for a drink until the restaurant opened. There are only two restaurants open in the city. This particular city has 500 people living here and it’s the off season so there isn’t much going on which is kind of nice.

We had a nice dinner and planned to go back to our place and drink a bottle of wine….but we crashed. I guess we needed a lot of sleep from the Genoa experience. Plus, the next day would be full of hiking. We plan to hike to all the cities.