Italian Honeymoon, part XIII: A Disappointment and an Adventure

Our final day Italy was a little unexpected. We had planned to catch an early train to Pisa, spend a couple of hours at the leaning tower, and then take the train up to the highest town in Cinque Terre and hike down.

The day started off promisingly, we caught at 8am train to Pisa and got there before it was too crazy with tourists.






We didn't have to wait in line at all to climb to the top of the tower, which believe me, is a trippy experience! Because it leans so far you have very little sense of equilibrium as you climb in a circle around the perimeter of the town, half the time leaning left, and the other half of the time leaning right.

The climb wasn't nearly as tedious as the duomo in Florence, but the view was still great!








The tower's shadow from above



leaning tower smooches!

the bells.
ps. I am no longer that tan or skinny!



After 15 minutes or so on the tower, we had to move for the next group.

We had to get some goofy pics, so we found a couple girls from NC State [it's such a relief to find an American when you travel abroad!] and swapped cameras to take pictures like this

We grabbed a quick bite, since we heard there was very little to do in Pisa other than the plaza, and headed back to the train to Cinque Terre.

After waiting at the depot for close to an hour, we went back to the ticket desk to ask where the train to Cinque Terre was...and found out through broken English that the train was cancelled due to a train wreck on the tracks north of Pisa. We were told we could still use our Eurail passes to get on a bus. We wandered Pisa somewhat frantically to find the bus station and finally made it and squished onto a tour bus which we hoped was destined for the coast.

2.5 hours later we arrived in Cinque Terre after a crazy bus ride through the countryside stopping in several towns. When we finally realized that the train wreck wouldn't be cleared up by the evening, we knew we had to leave at least 3.5 hours to get back to Florence, which left us with about 2 hours in Cinque Terre (a 6 hour hike).

I was so disappointed, we were crabby from hours of travel, and tired. So we stopped in the first city (would have been the last if we'd have hiked down), Rio Maggiore and decided to just make the best of the few hours we had.

And after walking out to the coast...we realized it wouldn't be sooo bad







The afternoon started out pretty overcast





Cinque Terre is a vacation spot for the locals, so we saw very few tourists. Most Italians take extensive time off (usually a month) in August, so the first week of July was very quiet!



We found a quiet rocky beach, and sunned for a bit. We brought bathing suits, but no towels or dry clothes, so I wasn't sure I wanted to dive in





we lounged, ate lots of gelato and hiked up and down the trail to dry off after our dip



We had another crazy bus ride back, but I was super impressed with my new husband's foreign-country direction skills. We made it back safely and tucked in our last night in Florence!