Day 13

We've been lucky so far with weather. It's only rained on the day we leave, and by the time we arrive in our new destination, it's sunny again. Not so much today! It was thundering in La Spezia, which was the worst day for this to happen! This was the day we were to go to Cinque Terre and hike between the 5 towns. However, as luck would have it, it started to improve by the time we landed in the first town, Riomaggiore.

Cinque Terre... if you ever go there, travel by ferry boat versus the train. Nothing is going to beat the view from the water when you first glimpse these tiny towns nestled on their rocky cliff perches. You wonder how people ever got the idea to live in these places.. and then how they managed to build their homes and livelihoods after that!

We were able to see a little bit of each town. Riomaggiore, Manarole (Sp?), and Corniglia were our favourites just because there locations were just a little more impressive than Vernazza and Monterossa. Also, Vernazza and Monterossa were more touristy as they both have the sandy beaches that Europeans love. Don't know quite how to describe Cinque Terre (in the time that we have right now) except that it's unique and definitely worth a stop if you get the chance.

Today was the sweatiest, most disgusting day of our lives. Because of the early thunderstorms, it was so muggy.. and then the sun came out in full force and killed us some more. We didn't have time to shower once we got back to La Spezia in order to make our train. We had to run with our packs to the train too which added to our sweatiness and THEN the train was this rickety, dirty contraption with no air-con. The horror. We sat in our filth surrounded by other sweaty people for 2.5 hours. We felt so gross that we could not move. Just sat there and stared at each other in misery.

When we finally arrived at our hotel in Florence, we ran for the showers. Then we realized that a shower meant a shower for the entire bathroom too. Hmmm.. oh well, I guess we're just spreading a little cleanliness around?