August 2, 2013
We set
our alarm this morning as well! We
decided to leave our bags at the BnB and do the hike from Vernazza to
Monterosso al Mare with just our cameras and water. It was wonderful to not have our bags with
us. Thanks to that and the fact it was
cooler, the 4km walk only took us just over 1.5hours this morning!
The
walk up the hill leaving Vernazza provided excellent views of the town and the
harbour. The olive trees and the
vineyards along the walk were great and because of the sun just rising we were
mostly in the shade, which was awesome.
We even found a little stream with a big rock where we enjoyed our
chocolate croissant along the way.
The way
down into Monterosso was about a million steps – and I was very happy to be
going down them and not up them, that’s for sure! The beach and the waterfront were absolutely
gorgeous, but with all of the tourists milling about, I was quite happy that we
did our beach thing in Vernazza last night instead. I did get some sand here for my collection,
however.
We both
got amazing gelato before catching the train back to Vernazza to pick up our
bags and make our way back to La Spezia for our last night. It was pretty seamless, to be honest! I love it when all these crazy travel plans
actually come together!
It was
hot and we had our packs, so we didn’t walk around too much in La Spezia once
we found the approximate location of where our Air BnB location was going to
be. We had planned to meet Iliria, our
host at 4pm, so we had about 3 hours to kill.
Fortunately, we found this awesome park at the end of the pedestrian
shopping street where we were staying tonight.
We had some fruit we bought back in Vernazza and read our books in the
shade until it was time to get into our place for the night.
It was
more challenging than perhaps it needed to be to get in – fortunately I am not
shy asking strangers for help, so after asking the bookstore and some other
people that were going in and out of the building in question, we knew we were
in the right place…but 4pm came and went with no sign of our host. I borrowed the cell phone from the coffee
shop next door to call her and she was napping!
Go figure!
Once we
were inside and met Iliria, there were no problems at all. The place was bigger than I anticipated and in
such a great location – if we weren’t so tired, it would have been the perfect
party location! Regardless, we had a
great room and Iliria was awesome and easy-going about letting us come and go. She even showed us where the supermarket was
located because by 5pm I think I had just about done Shawn in with the lack of
food we had had today!!
We
found the supermarket and then headed back to the park to enjoy our
picnic! It was perfect – and we even
entertained ourselves by watching pigeons fight over our leftover
crackers! (It was seriously too hot to
do anything else!!)
Tonight
we have been organizing and making sure that both of us have all of our own
papers, etc. Shawn goes back to Rome
tomorrow afternoon and I go up to Turin.
It won’t do me much good if he leaves with my wallet and I have his
passport!
Looking
forward to a great sleep-in day tomorrow morning after a great, but long 2 days
on the Cinque Terre.
-Allison
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