Today was a looong day!
We had to be at the train station for the 8:20 train so Paula and Rachelle went ahead early to get some food. I also went a little later but still early and stopped at a bakery to get an apricot cornetto.
I managed to make it to the station with about 10 minute to spare and met up with the others. However Gabi left a little later and was cutting it very close.
The train arrived and we still hadn’t seen Gabi, but she said to get on the train so we did. With 1 minute left we saw Gabi across the tracks on platform 1 running to the stairs to get to platform 2. I waited at the door looking for her until it started flashing and yelling at us.
Unfortunately the train doors close just as Gabi was on the platform.
But it was ok because she got the next train and met us in Riomaggiore.
While we were waiting for Gabi to show up I made some friends.
When Gabi showed up she caught one of my friends.
At the station we ran into another person from our field school (Kaleena) and since we all were doing the Via dell’Amore at 9 we all went together.
On the train I made another friend.
When we got to Manarola I made another friend, but he ran away.
In Manarola we departed ways with Kaleena after taking a “before the hike” photo.
We started walking down to the trail head for the blue line which would have been 2.2km but it is still closed because of a landslide and is not expected to be repaired until 2028.
So instead of 2.2km we walked 5.4km with 330ft of elevation.
We made it to Volastra which is a small town on the top of the mountains between Manarola and Corniglia. We took a break and got some food and fluids.
After what felt like forever we finally made it to Corniglia!
However, no one else wanted to hike the rest, so it was just Gabi and I.
It was 3.5km from Corniglia to Vernazza. When we arrive we noticed it was very busy and seemed to be where all the tourists were.
We stopped and had a quick break here. Gabi went swimming while I hid from the sun like a vampire.
All we had left was to hike from Vernazza to Monterosso which was 3.6km. Seemed like it would be a breeze since we had done most of it already.
I was not!
The last stretch dragged out for a long time because there was so many stairs. I thought we’d be done and then, nope, more stairs!
We did run into a cat shelter mud mountain and made some friends
We barely got any photos in Monterosso because we were so tired and just searching for food.
After looking for a place to eat we eventually ended up a burger bar type place and ordered pizza. Surprisingly the pizza was fairly good especially since we weren’t at a pizzaria.
However it could have tasted way better than it was because we were so hungry. I practically inhaled my entire pizza. It’s the first pizza I have been able to eat entirely at once this trip.
After food, we caught the train back to Riomaggiore to swim and look at the setting sun.
We then took the train back to La Spezia and slow and painfully trekked back to the loft.
Unfortunately life played a cruel joke and we had to walk up 3 stories of stairs just to get back. It felt like 500 flights, after all the walking.
after getting back I showered and then SLEEP!!!
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