Day 11 & 12 - Italy Came With A Fight

Ciao!  

We are now in La Spezia, Italy. It is part of Cinque Terre - a group of 5 little towns on the coast of Italy. Cinque Terre are the towns of colored buildings across the sides of the mountain. Absolutely beautiful. We were on trains for 12 hours yesterday trying to get here. It was a very eventful day. The second train we had to catch, we needed an extra ticket to board but we couldn't find it. Turned out, we had it in our email..... but at the time, we couldn't find it and the train was going to leave without us! Finally, I remembered that we had it, turned on Josh's Internet and searched through hundreds of emails for it while a train captain yelled at us in Italien until we found it! Thank goodness. At the end of our second train ride, a fight broke out right next to us. I mean that as literal as possible. There was me, a seat and a man standing next to it hitting another man. Beer flew all over us and the man pulled out needles and a knife. It was super intense. So I'm sitting there curled up in my seat, pressed as far back into the window as I could possibly get while Josh stares in horror at the man next to me not sure how to get me out of the situation. My plan was to crawl under the seats. Relatively quickly, another one of their "friends" broke them up and sent them into different directions. The whole train was wild. Finally, we got to our destination with one train left for the night. We waited and waited and finally our train arrived. This train was a sleeper train which posed as a problem because our eurail pass didn't cover this type of train. Our booked train somehow got messed up and we weren't allowed on. At this point, it was 11:30pm and we were exhausted. We managed to find one last train that went to La Spezia. Our air bnb host was supposed to be meeting us at 11pm at the apartment (this was already 5 hours after the designated check in time). We got in touch with her and begged her to meet us when we arrived. Maria is an angel. We arrived, found the apartment and she met us with a smile on her face. I about kissed her. 

On our hike to Vernazza

Today we woke up in the most pleasant room. It has air conditioning, a large bathroom and a real bed rather than a pull out couch. We were thrilled! Josh and I walked to city to see what it had to offer. It's a beautiful little town. We then decided to go on a hike from Monterosa to Vernazza which was supposedly the best hike in Cinque Terre. It was beautiful. Stunning. Magical. Perfect. We fell head over heels in love with the countryside. The hike was relatively brutal. It was extremely steep and grueling on our bodies but man oh man it was worth it. The views were speechless. At the end of our trek, we plopped into the ocean for a nice break. We then had lunch at a pizzeria on the ocean with a harpist playing the whole time. It was one of those fairytale moments you never forget. The ocean was glittering and we were all smiles. 

Vernazza

After a while, we headed back to La Spezia. We had to wait over an hour for our train. We clearly do not understand Italien trains. Once home, we changed and then went back out to dinner at a small cafe. The food was phenomenal. We had prosciutto and frozen mellon, Two types of pasta, wine and espressos. Now we are home and I'm exhausted. Josh is already asleep. 

Cant wait for tomorrow! 

Ciao, 

Lilly

Cafe Elite - Complimentary

Pizzeria - 33€

Osterisa Della Corre - 57€ 

After we accomplished the hike

Josh on a hidden beach in Vernazza