Saturday, June 23, 2007

At the Beach

The train strike ended as promised, at 9:00pm last night so this morning I hopped on a train and headed to Riomaggiore in Cinque Terre. Actually, it was three trains but it took less than 4 hours. The first and last train I took were regional ones and I accidentially boarded them illegally with my paperless ticket from the net. Apparently for those two legs I was supposed to get a real ticket. Oh well, you know how I love breaking the rules these days.

I got settled in my hotel and headed out to do my hike. You can hike between the 5 cities (Cinque Terre, get it?) and it's about 9 km and takes 5 hours. I decided to hike Riomaggiore up the coast to Monterosso and then catch a train home. Well, it was tough but some how I finished it in 3 hr 27 minutes. Lots of stairs going up and down the mountain side, Guess the 5 hours is actually a kind estimate so as not to discourage slow people.
I baked in the sun only to get to Monterosso, grab lunch and then hit the beach. I was nice just laying by the ocean and reading. I started to look into Kayaking but figured I had done enough for the day. I might look into doing it before I leave tomorrow afternoon. Some of you know how I love me some Kayak action. ;)

Here are a few pictures from the hike and the beach. I took tons! I won't make you look at all of them. Captions are under the pics.



Near Riomaggiore

Centered in the picture is where I was hiking to...
Vineyards along the hike
This is me on a bridge over crashing waves
Closing in on Monterosso
Made it!


This one's for Frank. It's pretty much straight down from my feet.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ah, Cinque Terre! Enjoy, Thea! I'm loving your Italia blog!

Anonymous said...

We are inspired by your strength. Don't they have cabs in Italy. At least a cart and suitable animal to pull it. Gracie and Pablo want to report you missing. I tried to explain in our family no one is missing until three weeks have passed.

Writinggal said...

3 hours and 27 minutes? Did you sprint the whole thing? I think it took us 8 or 9 hours, give or take an hour or two. Beautiful pics!! Bridge pic is cool!

Unknown said...

My feet are jealous that your feet are in the Cinque Terre.

Thea said...

Maybe you took your time on the hike or took another route. I was a woman on a mission.