Jen & Angel in Europe: Florence Day 5- Cinque Terre

We woke up at 5:20am to catch the tour bus to Cinque Terre. We bought the tour yesterday at the train station for 85 euros PER PERSON, which I thought was really steep! But Angel had her heart set on going, based on her coworker’s raves, and she described the atmosphere so well that Mom wanted to go too. I’ve heard many people recommend Cinque Terre as a “can’t miss” but I was willing to miss it at 85 euros per person. ESPECIALLY since after we bought the tour package, we found a better deal across from the train station for 85 euros per person as well, but the tour went to 3 of the 5 villages versus the 2 included in our package (we bought a Florence map right when we got off the train station for 1 euro, but the 2nd day, we found a tourist office across the street from the train station that gave out maps for free… and it was a better map!!! Also, we went into a 4 star hotel, and they gave out maps for free as well! Damn!). Although that tour only operated on Monday, Thursday and Saturday but our tour was M, W, F… of which we were basically available for Wednesday’s tour. So we felt better after that ~__^
The bus ride over was 1½ hours, then we board a ferry to take us to Portovenere, “The Port of Venus.” It is not actually part of Cinque Terre (Chink-quay Ter-ray), but I thought was the best stop of the day. There is a medieval-looking (they call it “Ligurian-style”) church and tower high atop the cliffs, completed in 1277… which makes you wonder why this structure is still standing and yet Pacific Coast homes are falling off the cliff!

We climbed to the top, and they have steep steps going right off the cliff! There are railings but it doesn’t extend to where you need it to extend at the drop-off!

This particular cliff is named after Lord Byron, the famed English poet. The view is incredible, and I am amazed how they even managed to get the heavy stones up the cliff to build the steps, let alone a whole church!

For some reason, Italians really like life-size chess boards:

I asked our tour guide, Ivan, and he said in Italy, they have these life-size boards all over the place where Italians actually get dressed up in their assigned positions (ie. Someone dressed up like a queen, someone dresses like a knight, etc.), and there are 2 people on the sidelines who mastermind how the respective teams are to move across the board! Crazy!

We then went on the boat again to get to our next stop, Monterosso, the last stop in Cinque Terre. Since it is a long boat ride, there was a guide who introduced us to the Cinque Terre region over the microphone. There are some villages that don’t even have running water (let alone hot water!) and electricity! The villages were built a long time ago, and it wasn’t until the last century that the villages were connected to Italy, let alone each other!

Before, it was a 3 hour hike over the mountains, with no paths, to the next village. Now, there are roads carved that make the walk much easier and faster, and there are train station stops at each village. We originally thought to buy train tickets to Cinque Terre instead of the tour package, but it would cost 40 euros round-trip per person, and that’s only 1 stop. You would need to buy point-to-point ticket to each of the villages, as they don’t sell day-passes for tourists :T. We figured it wasn’t worth it, as we don’t know the area all that well and didn’t want to get lost.
This is a PRIVATE home on the way to Cinque Terre (how the hell do they even get access to the place??):

It was freezing on top of the ferry! But we wanted to get good pictures ^.^

Monterosso is the largest of the 5 villages in Cinque Terre, and we stopped here for lunch. The tour group dispersed, based on what each person wanted to do. We walked to the “new town” first, as old and new are divided by a tunnel. The new town is basically a beach, with cafes lining the boardwalk. The prices were reasonable, so we ate at the only café that is right on top of the beach, Nuovo Eden Bar. Since it was freezing, we all ordered hot drinks. I ordered a espresso with gelato (supposedly a really famous Italian drink that was too expensive in Rome for me to order, but it was 2.2 euros here, so I thought it was worth it):

Mom and Dad ordered cappuccino each:

We ordered their house specialty, a fish ravioli (cool lookin’ black ravioli! I’ve never seen that before!):

Caffe Latte:

Hot chocolate… oh my god it was so freakin’ dense and chocolate-y!!! I’d been seeing this hot cocoa mix in supermarkets that looked this dense on the pictures, and I’m almost positive they used this mix as well, but I can’t obviously ask the waitress that!

The last stop we went to, Vernazza, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site… of which we have no idea what that means? Except that it’s supposed to be worth preserving?

The site that greets you upon arriving at this port is their church, and their “beach” (20 feet across total):

There is a castle on top of a cliff, Castello Doria, and it costs 1.4 euros per person to go in… so we climbed up to the ticket booth and came right back down… 128 steep rock steps each way.

Angel made me climb ANOTHER steep climb to reduce my apparently ‘borderline-high cholesterol’… if we kept on going, we’d walk to the next village! I complained the whole way up, but at the top of a cliff, I saw how gorgeous the view was!

On the way back down, we saw many rooms for rent, apparently for tourists. Although how would you get your luggage up this staircase!

Have fun when it’s raining!
Angel made a catfriend ^.^ on our walk down the mountain. He came out of a gated house, lied on the middle of the street waiting for us to pet him, then rubbed himself against Angel waiting for her to pet him!

A stream with geese:

Waiting for the boat at port:

The ferry back to La Spezia, where we were to meet the bus driver, was a looooong one. But we had met people through our tour and we exchanged interesting stories of our travels in Europe. We met two French couples, senior citizens, and they were just a ball to be around! One of the men ‘kissed’ Mom’s hand and said she looked young and pretty enough to be our sister! And we think he actually thought she was our age too, as he asked if we were sisters. But one thing we learned from talking to them (as they couldn’t speak English and kept communicating in rapid French) is that our French really sucks and we really need to brush up on it! But they were the cutest couples we’ve met so far!
Originally, we wanted to eat Florentine beef steak at a local restaurant, as it is a famed Florentine dish. One of the ladies we met today said it is better than prime rib, and it absolutely delicious and a ‘must-try,’ along with fried zucchini flower. Dad got sick from being on a boat the whole day (windy, cold, etc.) so we decided to eat at home tonight… on our last day here ;( ! The beef is ordered by the kilogram, and is around 33-38 euros per kg. We were going to go cuz Angel and Mom love beef, it’s a local specialty, and Angel was miserable on the boat the whole day (sea-sickness) so I thought she should be rewarded for not complaining AS MUCH as usual, but since Dad got sick….
Here’s what we had instead!
Vin Santo (6 euros) with biscotti: