Cinque Terre to Pisa To Florence

So our flat in Cinque Terre didn't have wifi...that was totally my bad.

Cinque Terre was stunningly beautiful, but I'm honestly glad that we have moved to the next stage of the trip. We spent all of Friday (New Years Day) hiking from Manarola (where we were staying) to the neighboring village, Corniglia. Then we hiked from Corniglia to Vernaza. 

The walk from Manarola to Corniglia was supposed to take about an hour and a half, but we ended up taking a different trail that went up and over the hills instead of around. The hike took us up up up and then down down down for about 3.5 hours. It was truly amazing. I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story. 

I said I'm glad to be on to the next phase of the trip because Cinque Terre was overrun by tourists. Even in the off season, boat loads of tour groups come through and, because it's the off season, only a fraction of the shops/restaurants were open. This meant that finding a place to eat was a chore. Also, Italian tourists are the WORST. Italians don't really have a personal space bubble, so collisions are quite common. For this reason, moving directly towards someone standing in your way doesn't give the same message that it does in America. I could literally be an inch away from someone and they would continue to stand as if I didn't exist. It's hard to explain in words, but I found that I was constantly frustrated. 

I can't imagine what Cinque Terre is like during the summer months. I loved the views, but I don't think I could bare to go back. It was just too many people in too small a place. 

We left Cinque Terre by train to La Spazia, then from La Spazia to Pisa. We spent a few hours in Piza then made our way to Florence. 

As an aside, we failed to properly document our travel from Manarola to La Spazia on our Eurorail pass and received a 50 euro fine. It was a telling end to a glorious, but stressful few days. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I do not like the Italian train system. I still don't.

Anyways, we ended up leaving Pisa 1.5 hours earlier than expect because, as it turns out, there isn't much to do there. After arriving in Firenze, we decided to buy a 72 hour museum pass before meeting our host and getting settled in our flat. We'll use this for the duration of our stay to get in all the museums/attractions without having to stand in line. Given the short duration of our stay here, we figured this was a good option. 

After meeting our host and getting settled, I decided to go for a quick run before it got dark. Hilariously enough, I got really lost and ended up having to walk a good 15 minutes to get back. 

Tomorrow we plan to visit a few museums and do a couple of Rick Steve's audio walking tours. 

Ciao!

Figure 1. This was the kind of view we had on our 3.5 hour hike from Manarola to Corniglia. Breathtaking, no?

Figure 2. Alex standing in the passageway outside the door to our flat. Cinque Terre was a labyrinth of little allies that spiraled up and down the rocky side of the mountains. It was a neat place to be.