I met a girl from New Zealand who seems to have the same round the world schedule as I do...including tickets to Peru from SF just a day before mine...and we hit it off right away. Me being crazy and without hotel reservations, stuck to her and took her advice as to which town I should try to stay in. I ended up at the first town of the five, Riomaggiore, and her hostel had a bed for me. They actually put us up in an apartment, with kitchen, meant for three, but we didn't have a roommate during my stay. It's this cute little village on a hillside with just one road going straight up and all sorts of bars and restaurants on the street. The town always seems festive and the locals don't seem to mind us tourists too much. Honestly, there's not too much to do here...I'm sure they enjoy the entertainment.
One of the main things people do here is hike the trails between the five villages. Due to torrential rains the night before our arrival, the trails were all closed on the day that we got there....which is fine. After the train ride up, we weren't much up to a hike anyway. Instead, we just wandered around the town and got some pasta. There is a beautiful rocky beach around the marina and I got my first taste of the salty sea. The waves were huge and pretty intimidating, but the water was warm and felt good if you got far enough out. We swam for an hour until it got chilly then went back to the apartment to relax. I got to bed early that night to prepare for the 9 km walk the next day.
It rained during the night and in the morning again, so only two of the hikes were open in the morning. Luckily, we were blessed with sun in the early afternoon and all of the trails were open by the time we got to them. The first two were quite easy and the towns were adorable. As we walked up the 382 steps to the third town, we got a taste of what we were in for during the rest of the hike. The last two legs just kicked our asses. Not only were they narrow, but steep steps going up and down the hillsides with only the Mediterranean to catch you hundreds of feet below. We saw a couple of hidden beaches, but decided to push on through to what we thought would be a sandy beach at the last town we would get to, Monterosso. By the last decent down into the town our feet ached and our legs were shaky, but the beach was in site and we darted right for it. As we were walking up to it, there was a girl coming out with a jellyfish sting, so that put me off right away. The beach was nice, but the little rocks got my feet pretty bad. I braved the water twice, not letting the jellyfish scare me away, but both times I saw them swimming pretty close to me and got out quickly. I think I saw four people get stung in the half hour or so that I was there...so I think I made the right decision to steer clear of that one.
Today it has been raining on and off all day, so it's a low key day in Riomaggiore. I have a train to Milano to catch at 5:13 so I'll hop on that after one last lunch in Italy. It is wonderful having a kitchen! And so much cheaper! So since Kitty has the room another day, she's allowing me to store my things and we're making a nice pasta dish in a little bit. After I arrive in Milan tonight, I'll take a bus over to the airport and sleep there rather than getting a hostel. I hear Milan is expensive, and my flight is too early to deal with it. I will join Hannah and Steve in Barcelona bright and early in the morning!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment