Hills, trains and Gondola's!

Friday, August 27, 2010
We woke up early today to get a nice hike in before our train was due to leave at noon. We had some breakfast and were off on the adventure. The guy who worked the hostel told us of a train that would take 2.5 hours from start to finish and would go up the mountain for a fabulous view and back down and then along the coast back to our hostel. We left just after 8, giving us plenty of time to get back and sorted before our train left. So we started out and the first part was quite steep and a lot of steps up and this was to the first town where the national park trek actually started. Once we arrive the terrain was quite flat along the trail but we were walking alongside the side of a cliff on a narrow dirt path, with nowhere to go but carefully straight ahead or falling all the way down the cliff. We walked along vineyards and really cute little houses on the cliff and were careful to take our time and walk carefully. We were still walking at a good pace and stopped only a few times for pics. Time kept passing and we were still walking alongside this huge cliff. We came to a place that we thought was the start of our decent but just ended up being around a river. We continued on, not having any other way to go and were starting to get worried about time. We only had a few hours to get back to Manarola, grab our bags and get back to the train station. We continued down and down and down and it seemed like forever. We got down to the town where we were supposed to start our walk back to our town along the water at about 1200. We were rushing and trying to catch the train back to our village and knew we would have to hurry up to our hostel and back down if we had any hope of catching this train at 1239. The train was due to leave back to Manarola at 1212 and arrive at 1219 and we were confident that if we really hurried we could make it. Then comes an overhead announcement that our train would be delayed by 10 minutes. We were still thinking that we have to at least try and make our train and would have to essentially run up the hill and back down...but it was doable. Then a few minutes later we hear that it was 15 minutes delayed...at this point we are hot, sweaty, thirsty and grumpy so we had beers at the train station and decided that we would definitely miss our train. It was a terrible feeling and we started planning a new way to get to Venice today. The problem was that we had a reserved train from Florence to Venice at 430 and we would miss that and have to pay for a new reservation. What other choice did we have but to just figure out a way to get there and if we had to pay an extra 20 euro, well then so be it. So we got on our train and we still had our beers with us (but you can drink anywhere in Europe...kind of strange but we aren’t ones to complain) and a girl motioned towards Heather and her beer. Heather and I both initially thought she was like “ya, drinks are a good idea, good for you” sort of idea. Until she asked if she could have some! Haha! Italians have proven that they are not shy to ask you for what they want if you have it. Heather said no and I had only a little bit of warm beer, probably mostly my saliva anyhow and said, “Well you can have mine”. Her face lit up like a Christmas tree as she took my nasty remains of a beer. My rationale was that now I didn’t have to find a garbage can and drink the nasty warm spit beer either. I didn’t think she would take it but low and behold...she did! We had a good laugh about it afterwards. Anyhow, up the hill we climbed and back to our hostel. We weren’t very happy with the guy who told us that it would only take 2.5 hours and it took over 3 and we didn’t even finish the route that we trained back. So we thought, let’s give him the guilt trip and maybe he will drive us to the main train station so we could catch our 1341 train. The station was only like 10-15 minutes away but the train from the village ran so infrequently that we were out of options. The guy was not very sympathetic as we had wished and told us to book a new train. Hehe! It was worth a shot! We then asked about a taxi and he said that we could get one but it would cost 30-50 euro since it had to come from the main town. Definitely not worth it! The other thing was that we had told my Aunt that we would be arriving in Venice at our hostel around 7 and now we would be late. She is a flight attendant, the one who we met up with in Athens, who just happened to be in Venice the same night as us. So when we got back to the hostel I rang and rang my parents on skype until they finally answered (it was before 7am there) and asked my mom to text my aunt and tell her we wouldn’t be in until 8 or 9. We headed then to the train station to La Spezia and had figured out that we had 5 minutes to run, make a reservation and get on the 1406 train. So Heather stayed with the bags and I ran and tried to get a reservation. I ran up to the first window and was asking this man if we could get on this train and he said no and that he couldn’t help me. So annoyed I went up to the information desk where this woman was taking her sweet time to ask for directions for the supermarket...meanwhile I am trying to dodge past her to get on this train! So I finally got to the front of the line and asked how we get to Venice as fast as possible the lady wrote out the trains and told us to get on the 1412 train and would have to switch and would get to Florence at 1633 (3 minutes too late for our initial reservation). So I ran to the gates, grabbed my bag and yelled to Heather to get on the train. We just made the train as the doors shut right behind Heather before we were even seated. So we trained to Pisa, switched quick and headed to Florence. We ran off the train in Florence and knew there was no way that the train was late leaving and could not make our reservation. Darn! It was quite the thrill though to try and make it! We had an hour before the next train and went and made a reservation and got on the 1730 train to Venice. We would only be an hour late arriving in Venice. When we did arrive we got a 24 hour water bus ticket and were on our way to our hostel. We had decided earlier as well that we would leave our big packs at the train station and only pack our little bags for the night, since we leave tomorrow anyhow. So we were packed onto this little water bus and it was really neat but we were so glad to be without the excess baggage. We had our directions written down and although they were kind of confusing, they were quite simple from the waterbus stop. We walked the way the directions told us and just around the corner from our hostel, we hear “Meghan!” and we look and there is my Aunt and her friend Elaine sitting at a table at a restaurant having a glass of wine. They had been to the hostel to look for us. They even had a little tour of the place and were invited to stay for dinner... it was 5 euro pasta night. Hehe! It was pretty funny! Anyhow, we checked into our hostel, changed quickly and headed out to dinner on the town. We did a little shopping along the way and finally came to Rialto bridge where we found a little waterfront restaurant to sit and eat. We had a really good meal with really good company. We sat and chatted and ate until 1130ish. Dona and Elaine had to get back on the waterbus to get back to their hotel which was pretty far away before the bus stopped running. We said our farewell’s and sent a few things with them to take home for us as well! Heather and I tried walking back to our hostel but got lost and decided just to come back to the waterbus and take it to the stop we had taken earlier and knew our way home. Our hostel also had a curfew of 1am so we had to get back before we were locked out. It was really noisy at our hostel and the beds were terrible. Being a later check in, we had two top bunks, they were quite high and ghetto. Heather’s mattress sunk in when she laid on it, missing a few springs I think. Not going to be a great night’s sleep but it’s only for one night!