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Published: June 28th 2011
Our trip from London to Milan took us over the Alps on a fairly clear day, so we were able to see Mount Blanc along with countless tiny mountain towns nestled on the edges of beautiful mountain valleys. However, when we arrived in Milan the calm induced by our leisurely glide over the Alps quickly disappeared when we realized that Marianne's bag was missing. After waiting in line for perhaps half an hour, an agent took our baggage tag and being unable to do anything with it except locate our flight number, we were directed to another line and a different agent who was also able to do little except set up a claim to have the bag delivered whenever it was located. To say the least, we were very discomforted by this experience. Naturally, there was nothing more that could be done and no allowance for us to go out buy clothing and everything else that would be needed to 'temporarily' replace Marianne's belongings until her bag was conjured up from the seas of missing baggage. In the end all we could do was take our claim ticket and jump the train to Milan Central Station where we were told
Milan Train Station
One corner of the middle section of Milan Central Stationwe could buy clothing and get the train to Cinque Terre.
Milan Central Station was the most amazingly large space that we have ever entered. It is nearly impossible to explain how large these marble elongated-dome shaped structures were except to say that I have never felt more like an ant in a humongous hive of activity. There were two humongous marble caverns and then the track area which may have had near 30 tracks all lined up one alongside another under one concrete and marble structure. Along the edges of the two inner marble caverns that housed ticket offices, cafes and restaurants, Katie and Marianne went for a forty minute hyper shopping trip and managed to secure a surpising number of nice get's including shoes and a couple of outfits. Fortunately, Marianne's bag somehow floated to the top of the sea of lost baggage at Heathrow and was nearly magically delivered right to our village a couple days later! However, looking back upon this experience with Marianne's bag sitting beside us, having your bag disappear in one of the fashion capitals of the world was a mixed blessing that resulted in an epic, albeit curt
shopping trip in what is doubtless one of the world's great railway bazaars.
But our battle to reach Cinque Terre (or as Katie heard an American say Sinky Terry) was not quite over. When we boarded our train and tried to find our seats, we found that we could barely get into the car because it was so loaded with Friday evening passengers leaving Milan to go to the coast at Genoa. Additionally, when we did locate our seats we found that they had already been claimed by people who were very adamant about the fact that they had gotten their first and we had to get a conductor to finally extricate them so that we could claim a seat. Apparrently, at a cheaper rate, you can buy a standing only ticket which enables you to claim any inch of space in any passageway within the train baggage and all, or if you are pushy enough, someone else's seat! Although we were able to manage claiming our seats with the assistance of a friendly conductor it was still very very crowded and very hot in the train. However, the rhythmic rocking of the train and
the scenery when we reached the coast at Genoa quikly seemed to melt away the irritable nature of all on the very crowded train.
And then we reached Monterosso in Cinque Terre and fell in love. The train station borders a section of the 'new' town which has a long string of beach with stripes of matching umbrellas and chairs for rent along with accompanying gelato shops and cafes. The old section, where we are staying is through a short tunnel and is comprised of no less than four churches (in a town that coudn't have more than a thousand residents), one street for cars and perhaps ten passageways for walking with restaurants and wine, clothing, produce, cheese, gift and prosciutto shops.
The passageways are bordered by fruit trees and flowering shrubs of many types as well as cats lazily threading their way along the shops to their favorite sunny spot. Our room in our hostel is a fifth floor loft with a patio that is bigger than our room and a has view of the ocean! At a hostel rate, this is a major find!
We were fortunate enough
to arrive, unbeknownst to us, on the festival of San Giovanni, the patron saint of Monterosso. On Friday night all of the town's residents and tourists went down to the waterfront for fireworks and a procession of the monks from the town's Capuchin Monastery. The procession passed down the street singing on their way to mass at the main church. On Sunday, the local residents made murals out of flowers, leaves and colored pebbles on the passageways and another procession passed through the town over one mural and then down another passage to mass at the church.
Over the past couple of days we've done plenty of swimming, visited other towns, feasted on pasta of different shapes with seafood and pesto, tried different types of pizzas and a few different types of gelato. Nocciola, which is hazelnut and tastes a bit like an ice cream version of Nutella is our favorite, but their are still many contenders that have yet to prove themselves.
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Johnny
non-member comment
you two are living the life, i am super envious! beautiful pictures, awesome adventures!