Day #55 in Orvieto (Cinque Terre trip)

April 18, 2013 – Thursday

I’M DONE!!!!! With my essays and final exam! Done! I submitted both essays at noon today before lunch.

This morning at 9am we all had to go back to the police station to pick up our Permit to Sojourn, but thankfully it only took a few minutes. Then Jenna and I quickly went to the market to buy some fruit and a mini roasted chicken (seriously, they have mini roasted chickens at the market so we finally got one. Laura and I almost buy one every time we go to the market so we finally did it today). We also bought some bread and stuff for lunch/dinner on the train. After the market, we stopped at the supermarket because I was looking for sunscreen. I only brought a small, travel size sunscreen because I didn’t think it would ever be sunny here.

After a quick lunch, I took the funiculare to the  train station with Christabel, Joeli, Laura and Jenna! We took the train to Florence, then Pisa, then La Spezia, and then we arrived in Riomaggiore! Our afternoon on the trains was a little crazy because after we took the funicular down, we saw that our train to Florence was running 20 minutes late which was bad because our connections were already going to be really close anyways, so we were afraid if we missed one connection, we’d miss them all! So we took the (late) train to Florence and we arrived in Florence at 4:59 and our next train to Pisa at 5:00. So the second the doors opened on the train, we ran through the crowds to look at the departure screen to find our track number, and it was the LAST track all the way at the end of the Florence station. So we took off running to the track, and by the time all five of us stepped up onto the train, the doors closed behind us and the train started moving! The same exact thing happened when our train arrived in Pisa. We arrived two minutes before our train to La Spezia departed, so we started running through the station to get to the track, and right as we all jumped onto the train, the doors closed. Thankfully we had about an hour at the La Spezia station, so we went to McDonald’s and had French fries. They were probably the best fries I’ve had from McDonald’s, but you have to pay for ketchup here which is disappointing. We then took a train from La Spezia to Riomaggiore that only lasted for 7 minutes. It was dark by that point and we were zooming through lots of tunnels, but then suddenly we looked out the window and we caught a 5 second glimpse of the water before we went back into a tunnel – we all started shrieking… but it was okay because we were the only ones in that part of the train. We all continued to shriek as we got off of the train and ran to the cliff  by the water. A few people were laughing at it but it was so exciting to be by the water! 

We unpacked at the Bed & Breakfast (although they didn’t serve any breakfast…) and decided to walk to the beach, hoping to swim even though it was dark. We made it to the beach although there wasn’t any sand, just smooth rocks. Even though it was dark, you could see straight to the bottom because the water was so clear. I tumbled in the water/ground/rocks a few times because the stones were so smooth and sometimes slippery. We swam for ten minutes but the water was freezing! So we spent about an hour or so just hanging out on the beach, looking at the stars!  The air was warm – and it felt especially warm after being in the freezing cold water! 

Our picnic lunch before the train

The "Walk of Love" 

Locks on the gate

I've never taken a picture of my McDonald's garbage before... but here it is.