Cinque Terre!

Monday, October 7, 2013 @ 7:36 PM in 2013 Europe

Day 103

I had a few options to get to Riomaggiore today but I opted to take the first train which left at 10:30am. I had two different connections but I finally made it to Riomaggiore in the Cinque Terre around 12:15pm. After arriving in the train station you have to walk through a tunnel to get to the main part of town. I checked into the hostel and then walked around town for several hours.

The check-in experience is the weirdest so far. The guy who owns the hostel (which is basically just an apartment with a bunch of beds in the living room and two private rooms that can be bought) also owns a bar where you have to go to check in.

All of the beds were full in the main room so for the first night I'm sharing a private room with a guy named Oliver. He lives and paints here for 5 months out of the year and speaks about 4 different languages. A really cool guy!

The town is amazing. It's situated on the cliffs that lead down to a marina. I walked around all over town for a couple hours taking quite a few photos. I came back to the hostel around 3 to shower and met a guy named Adam from Australia who has been here a few nights.

All of the markets close down for a few hours in the middle of the day for a siesta so I couldn't actually buy groceries for dinner until around 5pm. Adam and I talked for a bit about our travels (he's currently living and working in a hostel in Edinburgh) and this has been his first real trip in the last 3 months since he got there.

I got some pasta, sauce, a big bell pepper and some wine at the market and then came back to cook it. I also made a huge mistake. In order to charge my phone quicker, I turned it off and put it on the charger. After dinner I turned the phone back on only to be prompted to enter the PIN code I was provided when I bought it. This wouldn't normally be a problem but I threw the pin card away this morning when I left Lucca. I didn't think I'd have to use it again after entering it the first time. It's a real pain because the hostel here doesn't have WiFi either. I think tomorrow I'm going to head back to La Spezia and get another SIM card. Not having any connection for the next 4 nights isn't really an option due to CCB emails and stuff.

On Wednesday I'm planning on doing some hiking between the towns in the Cinque Terre. Unfortunately a few of the sections are closed due to landslides so I'll have to figure out which ones are open and hike on those.

Teaser photos: