Cinque Terre

Well another exciting day!  We checked out of our hotel in Florence around 10 am trying to catch the 10:27 train…we settled on catching the 10:57 train to Monterosso and got on the ‘free train’ as Ford put it – just like the ‘free beach’!  We have been accustomed to traveling on the fast trains all over Italy – nice – AC – food cart (well crackers and hot coke) and a nice ‘toliet’…this car/train we got on with seconds to spare was the older trains that we would see at the station and thankful that we did not have to travel on those – ha – today – we were right there HOPPING on that train!  Barely making it!  We board to a packed train and NO AC!  I was shooting DARTS with my eyes!  We could have taken one of our normal nice fast trains an hour later – but Clark wanted to take the ‘free train’ !!!  J

We had three hours to go and I was not going to stay on the car with NO AC – I stepped on and immediately thought I was in a sauna room!  So, I took my bag and strolled through cars until I found the first class car (that is what our eurail pass was for – first class!  Ha!  Can you imagine us going around the world in first class I don’t think that would have happened)  Taylor went with me and, as the train was moving, (quite fast) we were going from car to car trying to find where we should sit, with our black bags in tow – looking for cool cars!  We finally found a car (it happened to be the first car right behind the conductor) and we went back (about 20 cars) to get the others to come on to the cool!!!  Can’t you see us – the six of us – black bags in tow – walking from car to car (SCARRY!)  So, we got some cool air – and the entire car to ourselves for 2 hours…there was NO food cart…and the toilet as Ford quotes was “nasty”!  We read, played A LOT of cards and tried to figure out where we were going to stay!

We made it to Monterosso just fine – so glad that we took the train instead of the car.  Found a great hotel (well, great for some tired travelers) took a stroll to the main town, kayaked for 2 hours (that was tons of fun) and then had dinner, gelato and going to bed!

Our hotel is quite the site!  You should check out the picture of Clark in the shower!  I know now (despite the train) that we could have traveled around the world! 

Tomorrow we hike the five towns and train back to Monterosso!  That should be tons of fun!

We leave Sunday and then head to Venice for three days…stay tuned!