More Freaken Up!

After a very early morning.. 2 hr drive and then many trains and switches we finally make it to Vernazza.. where my first meeting with a local is somewhat rather rude.. if you can't be a nice person then dude don't work in the tourist information center. Eventually we found a payphone to call Cristian from lamarina rooms, to come and meet us and walk us to the humble abode where we shall be parked for 2 nights.

 

As you can see we had a pretty awesome view.. and to get that view we had to walk up.. yes UP the steps of DOOM! I thought that I might just die by the time I got to the top.. but luckily I didn't.. which of course you can tell by the fact that you are reading this.. lucky you right?

We went and checked out the town and view from a few points before heading back to the room to wait for dinner time to roll around.. nothing really opened for dinner until 7pm.

I then, fell asleep on the bed with the door open listening to the crashing waves, it was so soothing and then Mike awoke us to go to dinner. Dinner was at a local place.. nothing all the special, nice food but not somewhere I would pay to eat at again. The waitress undercharged us by 30ish euros.. but being the good bitchez that we are..pointed out her mistake and got 1euro each back for our honesty.. score!

The next day we headed off for breakfast at another local place.. Il Pirata, this time one that Emma had previously looked up and taken note of, and of course it was another win for her belt on finding good places to munch at. We had a big breaky and then decided to go back for dinner so we booked a table.. once again for 7pm.

After breaky it was time to tackle the hike! We started off and I honestly wasn't sure I was going be alive by the end of it with how many STEPS there were to start with.. the trail was narrow in places, slippery in others and really packed with people going each way.. and sometimes extra packed where we would all bottle in the really narrow parts.. going down was nearly as bad as going up. There were a few good funny moments on the first leg of the hike. It took about 3 hours.. when in good dry stable conditions it should only take 2 hours.. and of course we stopped for many photos so that dragged it out a fair bit. Here's one of just a small section of steep steps we had to tackle..

We finally made it to the town, where it we had a well deserved lunch.. pasta, pizza and beer! We are in Italy! Then because we couldn't do the next couple of legs of the hike.. due to it being closed.. not that we were lazy! Honest! We caught the train to the next town.. where there were 382 steps of doom! Mike and I stayed at the bottom while Em and Georg hiked up and got us all a very refreshing froyo. It was DeLish.. so much so I tried to convince them to go back up the 382 steps.. sadly no luck. Next thing we know.. we are on the train and heading to the next town.. coz you know once again the hike part had been closed. Then we got to do the last part of the hike.. which of course was the easiest part and it really was more of a leisurely stroll down the lovers section, which is where I got to actually witness a boy proposing to a girl.. it was all so sweet and gushy.

We got to the final town, had some more cold icy goodness before jumping on the train and heading back home.. with just enough time to have a shower and head off to dinner.. where we had a pretty decent meal.. big meal I might add.. I was mighty stuffed and we even had 2 desserts! Piggies we be.. but you only live once!

Once home, we had a little drink of local wine, hung on the balcony before crashing out listening to the waves once again.. it was just wonderful, in a way it was a shame to leave this place but at the same time there really isn't much to do but eat and drink.