Cinque Terra

---

Cinque Terra Day one (21st)

Left Florence early this morning and headed to the Cinque Terra region via Pisa. We got all the usual funny photos (scaffold included) and then some gelato before continuing onto La Spezia. La Spezia is the town before Cinque Terra (which literally means 5 towns) and from here caught the train to the first of the towns Riomaggiorie (which was also where we were staying). Our accommodation is a 10 bed house so we have our own kitchen and Geoff and I also ended up with our own bedroom. After making our own dinner tonight we headed to bed nice and early

Day two.

Today we caught the train to Monterosso, the last of the 5 towns. We went for a walk through the “New Town” which is all the glitzy hotels and restaurants. We walked up to a castle on the hill, and the down around the cliff overlooking the beach. From here we went to the old town for lunch and had the best pizza in all of Italy. We started a walking tour which took us to the town’s church, and then to a ‘death church’ which is where they organise funerals and help for widows and to help the souls of those ppl who didn’t donate a dollar toward their renovations!! Creepy place that was old and run down, and I would’ve made a donation except they supposedly started renovations before 2006 and the place still looked like crap. So they didn’t get my euro! From here we walked the steep steps up to the monk church and then further up to the cemetery, which was built into an old ruined castle. The cemetery overlooked the ocean and the town, and you could see a few of the other 5 towns as well dotted along the coast. We spent ages in the cemetery, searching for the oldest grave we could. 1897. The roof of the castle held the graves of the towns’ priests’. The “graves” were actually laid horizontally on top of one another, about 5 high, with a marble slab across the front to act as the tombstone. At one point of the cemetery there was an area which looked as if all the tombs had collapsed one on top of the other…there was bits of material and coffin nails and handles scattered amongst the ashes (it looked like they just set fire to the whole mess to try and clear it all up!) We found a nice park to sit in a read for a while before heading back on the train back to home. We had another yummy dinner and drank a lot of wine with a couple of girls from Oz (Dizzy and Bella). We decided on a night time stroll down to the beach where Geoff went for a swim. This is where it all goes downhill. Geoff managed to cut his foot on a concrete slab while getting out of the water. However, between the dry retching and hobbling we managed to get back up to the room and inspect the injury. A small cut, no longer than 1cm in length. He gave it a wash then hopped into bed. However that was not to be the end of it…

Day Two

Geoff slept in while I went to find a doctor. His foot had gotten worse overnight and was looking very black and nasty. I found the doctor who told us we needed to go to the emergency department for stitches and a photo. The place we were staying was nice enough to drive us to the hospital in La Spezia. The drive was amazing, and we saw magnificent views from the cliff road.
We arrived at the ED, and they took Geoff in straight away. The x-ray came back all clear so they gave it a wipe over and sent him out the door. No stitches, no antibiotics, and no proper clean. We headed back home and had a quiet night.

Day three

Back to the hospital. Geoff’s foot was huge and red and looking even nastier than yesterday. Geoff couldn’t walk or weight bear or even hop, so I had to PIGGY BACK him to the train station…lucky he isn’t much heavier than my back pack, but defiantly more bonier! At the hospital we waited for hours before he was finally called in. they laid Geoff on a table and began to grab and prod…despite Geoff’s wails (or should I say screams…). They held him down, opened the wound with a scalpel the SCRUBBED it out with gauze and wash. Blergh. Poor Geoff was screaming and sweating, and I thought he was about to pass out. After all was said and done they gave him a script bandaged his foot and told him to leave. With Geoff now even worse than before I couldn’t get him out of the room. When we asked for crutches we were given a straight no. pricks. Finally some ambos helped me get him to the waiting room and one of them called an ambulance for us. I managed to piggy back him to the train station and went in search of a pharmacy for crutches but had no luck. I arrived back at the train station to find Geoff in tears from the pain. After partly getting Geoff along the train tunnel at Riomaggiorie, two Aussie girls stopped to help us. What a godsend!! I left Geoff at the bottom of the steps on the way up to our room, while I gave the pharmacy here one last shot for crutches. After hobbling around the pharmacy looking like a dill for a minute or two, the lady got what I was asking for!! I was in luck!!! Geoff looked ecstatic when I told him they had them!! We had another quiet night in while Geoff rested his foot.

---