Cinque Terra (Five Lands)

At 7am on a bright and sunny Tuesday morning in Tuscany, we we headed out to drive to Cinque Terra for the day. I was beyond excited to be by the water. We had limited time that we would be near the coast while on this trip so I couldn't wait to see the ocean. It took us about two hours to drive to Spezzia which was the town where you can catch a boat to Cinque Terra. The neverlost device could not understand where the Spezzia port was, so we had it take us to the Spezzia city center. At first we were wondering if this would work. Once we got closer to the city center. We started to see signs for Porto, so we started to follow the signs. When we got close to the port, we tried to find somewhere to park. There seemed to be no parking places anywhere. We finally found a spot about a mile or so away from the Port. Once parked, we had to try and figure out he parking meeting in Italian and we were struggling, then a man came up and started to use the machine, so Chris asked, "Parle Inglese" Meaning, "Do you speak English?" The man responded in English and said "Yes, I speak English. Then he proceeded to help us understand the parking meter and pay for our car to be there all night long just in case. He said that his brother lives in the states so he has been there several times to visit him. He not only spoke very good English, but barely had an Italian accent.

After we bid him goodbye, we walked to the port and I'm glad we took the route that we did because along the walk way there was a river that had tons and tons of fish in it. It was really neat. I took a few pictures before continuing one. We managed to make it to the port only getting directions once. We found the tourist area where we could buy tickets for the boat and for the first time in Italy, we ran in to some extremely rude people. When we first walked up to the counter we were completely ignored. Then when Chris said "Bonjourno, Parle Inglese" The man behind the counter rolled his eyes and pointed at the girl that was back there as well. She started yelling at him in Italian like she also did no want to help us. We bought our tickets and they told us where to go in the snottiest most stuck up way possible. It's hard to explain except to say that they both seemed like they had sticks up their butts. After we had our tickets in hand, we saw a little snack bar and decided to grab another coffee. Chris ordered himself an espresso and me a latte. Mine came in this really cool looking tall glass. We sat and drank our coffee and then saw that people were lining up to get on the boat so we prepared to get on as well. Chris had bought a book about Cinque Terra from one of the little shops at the port and we enjoyed reading through it after getting on the boat. The first part of the trip to the 5 villages was fine, but as we got closer the ocean got more choppy and I started to get a little sea sick. Once at the village we were dropped off at we decided to find a place to eat. Where the boat had dropped us off it was very busy and crowded so we decided to walk up the hill. Once at the top of the hill we found this little restaurant that was pirate themed. We were seated right away and the waiter spoke English so after we said that we were both Gluten Free, he basically picked our menu for us, We both had plates of thinly sliced fish that tasted like they had been smoked, there was no fishy taste at all which is my kind of fish. Afterwards he brought us a gluten free pesto pasta to share and then afterwards we had the best panna cotta I've ever had with a ton of seasonal fruits. It was amazingly delicious.

Before we left the restaurant I needed to use the restroom. Each restroom we ran into in Italy had more than one door. Often times there was a door for the sink area and another door for the toilet. I never understood what to do with the doors so I just shut the door to the toilet. I came out to wash my hands and heard some girls saying the word loca a whole lot, which means crazy in Italian. They than came and started doing their makeup in the mirror while I was washing my hands. It was very strange, but it did make me decided to close and lock both doors from then on.

We explored a bit more of that village and then decided to get back on the boat to go to the next village. We walked up to the representative and she said that the boats weren't running anymore due to bad seas. So we decided to take the train to the last villiage where they have the best beach. When entering the train area we saw signs everywhere to watch for pickpockets. There was a dirty old homeless guy who stunk really bad who was following us around and Chris and I were very weary of them and kept our eyes on him. Once on the train he sat a few rows ahead of us so we weren't too worried, but watched him as we left the train.

The last village was very cute. Chris and I wandered around and shopped and then ended up grabbing some gelato and then had a drink at a restaurant on the beach along with some snacks. We wandered around a bit longer and then decided to hop on the train and take it back to the Port in Spezzia. The train ride home was much less eventful which was kind of nice. Once we got back, we were a bit out of sorts since the train didn't really drop us right at he port. We asked a guy in a tourist shop for directions and he pointed us in the right direction and we eventually found our car. It was a fun day in Cinque Terra and we drove home after that and had a nice relaxing dinner in our condo.