A cold, rainy morning caused us to adjust our activities for the day. Instead of hiking the trail to Monterosso we decided to take the train in the other direction to the towns Britt has not been to yet: Riomaggiore and Manarola. One of us bundled up with rain gear and the other one said her rain gear, which includes a fashionable Canadian Poncho recently imported to Italy, was in the car that is parked somewhere but we don't know where because we didn't park the car; but at least we know where the key is - I think!
The north to south order of the towns in this part of the Cinque Terre is: Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore. We live in the middle in Corniglia. Tickets were purchased to take us south to Riomaggiore and back, with a stop in between at Manarola.
Riomaggiore is a typical, cute-and-all, small Italian hilltop town. We were leisurely and stopped for a capucci and egg in a muffin for breakfast. The bed and breakfast accommodations here don't serve eggs so it was a great treat.
Italian train stations are very noisy with overhead announcements scolding you to stand behind the yellow line and not to run back and forth across the railroad tracks. Sometimes they make announcements about the trains but they never, never tell you to never, never get on an Italian train that arrives early! We boarded the two minute early train at Riomaggiore with the intention of getting off at Manarola the next town. But the train didn't stop at Manarola, it didn't even slow down. We looked at each other with puzzled looks and thought we would just get off at Corniglia instead. But it didn’t stop at Corniglia either. The puzzled looks were on our faces again. The train was going too fast to stop at Vernazza and the puzzled looks morphed into horrified looks as we realized as we sped passed Vernazza, that we were on the “late” high-speed train to Genoa! Even though Britt decided it was a good idea to continue on to Genoa, we didn't have tickets to Genoa! The train stopped at Monterosso and we quickly scrambled off before a ticket-man found us.
We bought new tickets to take us to Manarola and hopped on the five minute early train with a few hundred other people. Britt said if it didn't stop in Manarola that she was going to do a tuck 'n roll out the window on the way by. Everything seemed normal with the train making the appropriate stops until we got to Manarola and it sped by the train station. It didn't stop until Riomaggiore. We were right back where we had started a few hours earlier! Even though I wanted to break the rules and leap across the yellow line to run across the railroad tracks to the other side, we went down, under and up and waited for the train to Manarola.
Manarola is a lovely town but it seems to take you longer to get there than it does to walk around the town!
The north to south order of the towns in this part of the Cinque Terre is: Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore. We live in the middle in Corniglia. Tickets were purchased to take us south to Riomaggiore and back, with a stop in between at Manarola.
Riomaggiore is a typical, cute-and-all, small Italian hilltop town. We were leisurely and stopped for a capucci and egg in a muffin for breakfast. The bed and breakfast accommodations here don't serve eggs so it was a great treat.
Italian train stations are very noisy with overhead announcements scolding you to stand behind the yellow line and not to run back and forth across the railroad tracks. Sometimes they make announcements about the trains but they never, never tell you to never, never get on an Italian train that arrives early! We boarded the two minute early train at Riomaggiore with the intention of getting off at Manarola the next town. But the train didn't stop at Manarola, it didn't even slow down. We looked at each other with puzzled looks and thought we would just get off at Corniglia instead. But it didn’t stop at Corniglia either. The puzzled looks were on our faces again. The train was going too fast to stop at Vernazza and the puzzled looks morphed into horrified looks as we realized as we sped passed Vernazza, that we were on the “late” high-speed train to Genoa! Even though Britt decided it was a good idea to continue on to Genoa, we didn't have tickets to Genoa! The train stopped at Monterosso and we quickly scrambled off before a ticket-man found us.
We bought new tickets to take us to Manarola and hopped on the five minute early train with a few hundred other people. Britt said if it didn't stop in Manarola that she was going to do a tuck 'n roll out the window on the way by. Everything seemed normal with the train making the appropriate stops until we got to Manarola and it sped by the train station. It didn't stop until Riomaggiore. We were right back where we had started a few hours earlier! Even though I wanted to break the rules and leap across the yellow line to run across the railroad tracks to the other side, we went down, under and up and waited for the train to Manarola.
Manarola is a lovely town but it seems to take you longer to get there than it does to walk around the town!
RSS Feed