charismatic megafauna since 1985

Cinque Terre

Sundays are rough for the traveller here. Nearly everything is closed, including the grocery store. There’s a place with food, luckily, so I’ll be able to get a drink (or several) and some dinner.

Included on this list of closed places are every place to stay. I tried the hostel. Closed today. I tried all three of the room-booking services, closed. I asked at a café and at the tourist office if there were other places to stay; they said try the room-booking services. When I tried the Internet, they said that I couldn’t book a room anywhere close by for today; I guess the whole of the 5 towns is closed.

Luckily, as I was joking (partially serious joking, the worst kind) about sleeping in the pedestrian tunnel for the night, another traveller offered to let me stay with her. She’s staying an apartment rented by the bed, but there are 4 beds and only 2 people, so there’s a free bed for me. So I won’t have to stay outside with the thunderstorm.

Not how I wanted to spend my first day of vacation-from-vacation, but it’s worked out okay so far and I’ve gotten to meet a couple cool people.

After going out for dinner and some drinks with the ladies who took me in, we came back to their apartment thing. The guy who runs the place came by to check on the lights (apparently they went out earlier) and I hid in the corner. However, the office is downstairs. A couple minutes after he left, he came back up in a huff, unlocking the door and barging in.

“I heard a guy’s voice!”

He looked in the bathroom, at which point I came out from the corner. He was very agitated, saying that I was trying to stay for free. I tried to explain that I didn’t want to stay for free, that I called and he said the office was closed, but he said I was lying. Even after I paid him the 15 Euro for the night, he was still agitated and accusing me of lying but at least he didn’t kick me out of the hostel.

Monday I got a real bed at the Mar Mar Hostel down the road. It’s pretty much the same set up as the other room I stayed in, if a bit smaller. After eating breakfast (apples, coffee, milk) and reading my book for a while, I went town-hopping down the Cinque Terre. They all look kinda similar, but it was nice to wander a bit with no goals in mind. I went with the guy who’s staying in the room w/ me and one of the girls I stayed with the night before. I really like staying in these smaller hostels because it’s much easier to meet people.

Monday night we had a bit of a party here. The older woman who stayed the night met some people while she was wandering and brought them back as Nigel and I were having dinner. We ended up sitting around, chatting and drinking for a couple hours.

Tuesday, Nigel and I went going to go to Monterosso (the last of the 5 towns and the one we didn’t make it to yesterday). We didn’t have anything to do there, so we just wandered around for an hour and went back to Riomaggiore for lunch. I took a nap and Nigel watched football (soccer) and we spent the evening watching football and Italian game shows.

I figured out that it’s not going to take me two whole days to get from here to Barcelona, so now I have an extra day somewhere, as well as part of a day in Milan since that’s where my night train is out of. I doubt I’ll spend it in Paris (already spending 4 days) or Amsterdam (already been there). The plan was to spend 2 days in Barcelona and 3 in Madrid, so maybe I’ll add it to Barcelona. The night train from Milan was really expensive, though: 70 Euro! That’s more than 3 nights worth of accomdations for me. At least I didn’t spend much in Cinque Terre so it evens out.