Stairs, stairs and more stairs

Day 6 - One small note to any readers - when we type this blog off line for some reason it will not keep the original spacing when it posts. Apologies that it appears as one big block of text. We wish there was something we could do to fix it. Spell check also appears to also work intermittently, hopefully the errors have not been too frequent. Today turned out to be an eventful day in more ways that one. The plan was to go to the train station in Florence, drop our bags in left luggage, then take a train with one days necessities in our day packs to Pisa to see the leaning tower. Then we would catch a train to Riomaggiore, the southern most town on the Cinque Terre. The Cinque Terre is a grouping of 5 costal towns all separated by trails that were used long ago as their only method of connection between the towns. People in the town are farmers, so the hills are terraced almost all the way up. The 4 lower hikes are open to the public and, for a fee, you can hike them. If you did it all in 1 day it would be about 6 hours of hiking at a moderate pace with lots of ups and downs. There are also a number of upper hiking trails that are very difficult, literally hiking straight up a hill then some flat across the ridge then straight down the hill to the next town. One other thing to note was that in 2011 there was a severe rain storm that caused a lot of flooding and damage throughout the cities. Mud 6 feet deep covered most of the streets and entered houses and businesses. In reading the Cinque Terre website they were encouraging tourists to come back to the area as they had sufficiently rebuilt. So we were excited to get back to see the towns. The last time Tim and Michelle had been in the area in 2009 they completed the lower hikes but split it into two days. Now we were looking to repeat the same plan today, staying overnight in Vernazza, the 4th of the 5 towns. Then tomorrow the plan is to hike to the last town and make our way to Venice. As I said, this was the plan. We started our day well, getting out of Florence on the 7:53 am train to make our way to Pisa. Once there, we decided to see the leaning tower first before it got too busy. Greg and Brenda had mentioned climbing the tower, so Tim went ahead to see how long the wait would be. There are a limited number of people that are allowed to climb it (20 people every 15 minutes) and if you miss your window you are out of luck. The wait times can be very long. It turned out Tim was second in line and there was only a 30 minute wait. So he, Brenda and Greg bought tickets for the tower. When he was done buying the tickets the line behind him was 45 people deep and it seemed like 50 tour busses had just dropped off all of their passengers. It was amazing how fast the square filled with people. Had they been 10 minutes later getting in line the wait would have been 2+ hours and they would have not had the time to climb it. Michelle opted to stay with the bags down below. The tower was a little awkward to climb since it was leaning to one side, but all three said it was worth it. We were just in time to make the next train to Riomaggiore. Had we been a little bit later we would have waited an hour for the next train. It is amazing how perfect the timing was during the day. On the train Tim got to chatting with another couple who informed us that 3 of the 4 lower hikes in the Cinque Terre were still closed. The last hike, from Vernazza to Monterosso al Mare was still open. Interesting how the Cinque Terre website failed to mention that little tid bit. I guess it isn't in their best interest to tell potential tourists that they can't hike the trails. We debated for a bit what to do with the afternoon. Hike an upper trail or two? Take a boat between some of the cities? Take the train straight to Vernazza and enjoy the town a bit more? In the end we opted to take an upper trail even though the lady at the tourist information desk assured us it was very difficult. Straight up the mountain and straight down. Yikes. But up we went. And she was right. Climbing straight up a mountain is not really the hard part. The hard part is that the stones are not at an even height, so you have to climb up but also take some very large steps. All the way up. The signs said it was .30 miles to the top and another .30 miles down. Luckily the weather was good. Sunny, but with a good ocean breeze and a few trees for shade and rest. We did think to ourselves that back when there was no train, cars or busses to connect the towns you really did have to think carefully about whether or not you wanted to date someone in one of the other villages. The hike between the two would show how committed you were to each other! Once down to the other side and into the town of Manrola we opted to have lunch at a place Tim and Michelle had been to before, a restaurant called Aristide. We had a fish sampler platter (with octopus, yum!), the pesto gnocchi and the pesto linguini with green beans and shrimp. The Smiths had the risotto with a variety of fish. It was all delicious. Since we had a great waiter who understood English we decided to ask him something that had been bugging us for a while. The waiters would bring bread out to your table, but no olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette to dip it in. Since this is done at most Italian restaurants in the states, we could't understand why no one had done it here. His nose wrinkled a bit and he told us grudgingly that we could, but that isn't really done in Italy. Which shocked us as we thought that was a normal part of a meal. You learn something new every day. After lunch it was back to the train station to catch a train and meet the owner of the apartment we had rented. When we arrived they were not there. Thus ensued 10 minutes of trying to figure out how to contact them. Finally another American couple renting a room two doors down from us came by and offered to let us use their phone to call. The woman arrived 3 minutes later to open the door. This apartment was interesting. It is very narrow, maybe 15 feet across with 4 floors and 7 bedrooms. We think the owners added a few additional rooms to rent because there are very small common areas on each floor and the lowest floor we were told is for the owner. When the woman opened his apartment to see if there was an additional key there was a full beautiful kitchen and living room furniture that we could see. The apartment itself had a great location. It backed right onto a little private beach so you cold hear the ocean and there was a balcony you could use to watch the waves. It was up high on the cliff, so no direct access to the water, but if we could live on that balcony we would. The inside of the apartment was a different story. Italian apartments are always a little quirky, it comes with the charm, but this place was just a little sad. Our rooms were serviceable but all of the furniture was old and lumpy. Stucco and paint were pealing off of the walls in most rooms. The kitchen needed a major overhaul and though there was a washing machine for clothes (yeah!) we were told it was broken. The oddest thing of all was that the bathroom was not actually in the house. You walked out of the back of the house to the covered veranda. If you took a right you were on the balcony. If you went straight you were in the bathroom. And the tub was not a full sized tub. It had high sides and you actually sat down in it (the tub had a seat like a spa would) and used a hand held shower head to wash. We had never seen that before, it was quite interesting. All in all it could have been a cute little place had there been a little bit of work put into it. But in its current life it looks to be a rental where the owners are more interested in maximizing rent than they are taking care of the property. Once checked into the room we headed down to the beach to catch the sunset and some dinner. It was very windy and cold so we tried to eat as fast as possible. Brenda had a clam soup that she thought was good and Greg had a well cooked veal. Tim opted for the fish ravioli which he thought was just ok and Michelle tried some linguini with a prawn sauce (also good). None of the food blew our socks off though and once back at the apartment we showered and went to bed. It is still the plan to try the final lower hike of the Cinque Terre tomorrow depending on how our bodies feel. This is certainly becoming the trip of climbing!