Advertisement
Buon Giorno!
If there is any one place in Europe that I could spend the rest of my life living in (besides Granada of course!) it would be located somewhere along the tranquil western coast of Italy. Carla and I made a 5-day trip to Italy, but instead of our typical "gung-ho-run-around-and-see-everything-we-possibly-can-until-we-are-dead" style of traveling, we both agreed that this one was going to be different. We wanted to be washed up on the Mediterranean shore ina quiet location in what could actually be classified as a "vacation". We really just wanted some R & R away from the city, so we took some excellent advice from Rick Steves (courtesy of WSU Cable 8) and booked a trip to the Cinque Terre.
I knew that this was going to be a fantastic trip from the start. Our plane flew out of Granada, which already made for a great beginning of our 'vacation' becasue we did not have to take a 5-hour bus to Madrid to catch a 6 a.m. flight. The plane landed in Milan around 5:00 in the afternoon, and we had found our hostal and a quaint little pizzaria by 8:00. This was already 10 times
less stressful than our other excursions.
At the pizzaria we were sat down next to two middle-aged Italian fellows that offered to help us communicate with the waitress. Mid-meal we got to talking with them about Italy and traveling. One of them was obviously very well-off. He spoke about having lived all over the continent of Europe, and owning summer homes in Greece and Turkey. As it turned out he is the editor for a fashion magazine, which really wasn't a surprise because Milan is one of the most important cities for fashion in the world. The real shocker came, though, after he found out we were from the U.S. "Oh really? I am headed to L.A. next week to work with someone fromt he show Grey's Anatomy...um...Patrick Dempsey I think his name is..." Carla and I just about fell over in our seats. If these two Italian guys were our tickets to being famous, we completely ruined it by turning into 12-year-old girls that just found out that they get to meet NSYNC. "No way!!!" we both cried out in unison. He then told us that he has also worked with the cast from Sex in the City,
Desperate Housewives, Colin Farrell, and (my favorite) Jack from ABC's LOST. We were starstruck.
Bright and early Friday morning we caught a train to the Cinque Terre. The Cinque Terre ('cinque' being the Italian word for 'five') are five small fishing villages that are built into the cliffs of the western coast of Italy. Our train brought us to the first town, Monterosso, and since we easily found a cheap place to stay (and PARTLY becasue of the beautiful beaches) we stayed there for the night. Carla and I quickly discovered that Italian food is to die for, Italian ice cream (gilatto) is more than delicious, and that the Italian people are some of the nicest people you'll ever meet. For example, there was this crazy man that owned a wine cellar right next to our hotel, and every time we would walk by he would come frolicking out saying "Have you seen my wine cellar? You must see my wine cellar. Cheap wine for students. You try for free!" Haha. We thought that he was pretty funny.
I also finally realized that the Spanish that I'm learning here in Spain can really come in handy. When we
went to check out of the hotel the next morning, the receptionist (a very old man) seemed to be having communication problems with a Spanish woman on the phone. As soon as I walked in he looked at me, then shoved the phone in my face. I looked at him with the "what do you want me to do with this?" face and he told me in very broken English to make a reservation for the lady. Haha. I talked with the woman on the phone, jotted down her information, and made the booking. It's nice to know that I could be a hotel receptionist in Italy if I really want to.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch....
Our second day in the Cinque Terre we took the train to Riomaggiore, the last in the line of cliff-dwelling towns. Our friend, Sam, had told us of a cheap hostal that we could find there. We found it fairly easily but decided that we'd rather stay in Monterosso near the beaches. Carla and I chose to take the hiking trails back, which was so neat. We took six and a half hours to hike from Riomaggiore to Monterosso, stopping at
the other three towns on the way. Each one of them was unique and equally beautiful. By the time we strolled in to Monterosso, though, we were definitely ready to kick back and take a nap on the beach.
By now we've come to realize that only about 20% of the time does our vacations go as planned, so we weren't in the least surprised when the man at the frot desk of our previous hotel told us that they were all booked up for the rest of the weekend. Of course we figured that they should give us a room free of charge because I had helped them out earlier with the language delimma, but the receptionist guy was persistent that there were no vacancies. Finally he had had enough of our pestering and said (in my idea of a "mobster-voice"), "Let-a me ask-a the wine-a man-a". The looks that carla and I gave eachother must have been priceless because we both remembered the crazy wine man. The man yelled out the back, and crazy wine man came running out of his cellar. He offered us his extra little apartment complete with a kitchen and a bathroom, but
no shower (wine man told us that we could shower on the beach) all for ten euros less than the hotel AND the hostal! Of course we then had to buy a bottle of his "five euros only for students" white wine. It was perfect.
After that we spent the next few days exploring Monterosso, eating cheap pizza and ice cream, living with Wine Man, and relaxing on the beach. It was incredible.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.106s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 10; qc: 52; dbt: 0.0624s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
chelsi
non-member comment
are you serious?
Laura..you need to go back to that fashion-guy and make him introduce you to "Jack" from Lost!! haha...and possibly patrick dempsey? hehe