Thank God for Rick Steves

I figure I should type this one out before I leave for the Amalfi Coast tomorrow. Otherwise my next blog would end up being much too long for anyone to be interested in.

Forgive me for the recent slack in posts. My mom has been here in Florence, seeing what's been going on, rather than hounding me for more blog posts :) For those of you who didn't know, my family and Heather were visiting me in this foreign land last week. I've put up Pisa pictures on Facebook and creep on Heather Shoop to see more weird pictures of my family.

Today I went with my lovely roommate, Beth, to the delightful Cinque Terre. It is a strip of western Italian coast which includes 5 small towns (hence, the cinque - five in Italian). These towns are all connected by a long stretch of hiking trails. Some people actually try to make the 5 hour trek. Crazies. I know. Beth and I visited the town of Vernazza. It's usually the one you see all the pictures of: the colorful buildings perked up on a steep hill leading into the water. Here's a few I took:

After a three hour train ride into the beautiful beach town, we hiked up a steep hill (about a 20 minute walk) to the cemetery of the town. The hike was warm, beautiful, and completely isolated. Thanks to the influence of my father, I had been inclined to purchase Rick Steves' guide to Italy. In the very informative Cinque Terre section, he provides the most helpful walking tour guide for Vernazza. With his help, Beth and I got to see views of the town we never would have found on our own.

We spent about 5 hours, eating lunch, gelato, laying on giant rocks, writing/purchasing post cards, reading, and exploring. The weather was perfect so we rolled up our pants and sat ourselves down for a nice relaxing day.

Ending the day with a good book @ sunset.

Unfortunately, the day turned awry as we set out to leave. Rick Steves doesn't quite cover what to do if you miss your train. The train ride to Vernazza from Florence had been so easily because we were given three tickets: the exact number of trains we took. We only had one ticket for our ride back. So we were baffled. We decided to wait and ask someone until we left. Vernazza's train people like to leave work super early though, so there was no one to ask. I mistook an arrival time for a departure time, thus missing our train in the right direction. Luckily, by happenstance, after taking the train in the opposite direction necessary, we asked a nice train man what to do. After plenty of stress and fretting, we found ourselves on the smallest, darkest, most vacant creepy train back to Florence. We sat on it for about 2 and a half hours while passing through some definite ghost towns (keep in mind, we left Vernazza at sunset, so most of our ride was in the dark).

We finally made it back to our apartment and are happy to say that we've finally had one adventurous and productive day of Spring Break!! Off to the Amalfi Coast tomorrow night to see Pompeii, Capri, and Naples. Oh, and to get some beach action. I'm preparing myself for a sunburn. Be back Sunday night to update.