Al and I were sad to leave Lena and her family in Ravensburg as we had to re-learn how to take care of ourselves (thanks again for spoiling us Lena & parents), but we were looking forward to visiting Italy, the country we will probably spend the most time in. We prepared for another long travel day but didn’t anticipate train delays and missing connections. Lena drove us to the train station in her town but there ended up being a 40 minute delay (supposedly this wasn’t out of the ordinary for this train) so she graciously but quickly drove us to a neighboring town so we could catch a ferry to take a different train. All in all, we ended up taking SEVEN trains and one ferry to get to Como, but we made it! On our last train switch we passed through the town of Lugano which is actually in Switzerland but basically felt like Italy. It was interesting passing from Swiss to Italian trains as we automatically felt cultural differences (Swiss trains being much nicer).
We booked another studio apartment Airbnb and our host met us there as we arrived. We were only a five minute walk from the train station which was nice. It reminded us of our apartment in Budapest since it was tiny and had a bed in the loft up above. Per our now usual routine, we headed to a local grocery store to stock up on breakfast and lunch food for our two night stay there. We ended up cooking dinner and having a low key night the first night. The next day, we decided to walk to the city center and explore the town a bit more. We hadn’t done much research and were planning on finding a tourist office to give us some insider tips, but the info centers on the map were non-existent when we arrived. One had shut down and we couldn’t find the other one. So we improvised. In walking through the town of Como, we stumbled upon what looked like a farmers market but turned out to be some kind of culinary school food sample fair, for free! Since it was free, it was jam packed with locals and foreigners enjoying bite sized samples of desserts, pastas, and side dishes. Of course, I tried a couple samples but didn’t taste anything extraordinary. We explored some more and were taken aback by the beautiful duomo in the center of the town. We took a peak inside the church but I instantly walked back out as I was reminded you can’t wear shorts since your knees aren’t covered (just women). I instantly felt uncomfortable as I realized there weren’t really any Italian women wearing shorts even though it was a warm day. Oops!
Afterwards, we walked along the lake a bit until the path dead-ended. At this point, we regretted not doing more research on the area as we assumed there would be a nice lake walk or something close to it. After flipping a coin to decide our next move, we decided to take the furnicular up to the top of the nearest mountain. From the top we hiked about 30 minutes more to get to a lighthouse that looked out over the lake. It was a nice view but a little hazy and there were lots of tourists at the top taking pictures but we enjoyed the brief uphill workout. After taking an afternoon siesta, we then went back out to explore Como at night. To our surprise, the town seemed asleep! From my previous Italy experiences, I expected the town to come alive at night with tons of people eating out and sitting on piazzas chatting, etc. but this was not the case. We weren’t sure if it was because it was off-season, we just didn’t stay in the right town on the lake, or we weren’t in the right part of Como, but we were a little surprised there wasn’t more going on. We ended up called it a night early and prepared for our next travel day.
As we reminisced on our time in Como, we both agreed that since our travel days and settling in to each accommodation take so much out of us, two nights is really too short in any place. This couple weeks stretch of our trip we had been hopping around every 2-3 nights so we were a little burnt out and we felt a little rushed in Como since we only had one full day. We will just have to visit again! (Maybe.) The next morning we packed up and headed to the train station to catch a train to Cinque Terre to meet back up with Daniel and Mish. We only had one train change in Milan and the travel went fairly smooth. We also didn’t get our Eurail passes stamped again so technically we got another free travel day. It has seemed like the ticket checkers in our last few countries weren’t as familiar with the Eurail pass and what they were supposed to do but hey it worked in our benefit.
In Cinque Terre we booked an apartment through Homeaway (like Airbnb/Vrbo). The apartment was in a great location in the northern most town, Monterosso al Mare (Cinque Terre means five towns in Italian). It was situated in the center of the little town, just a minute from the beach and had a balcony with an ocean view and a coffee/gelato shop right below it. I instantly had deja vu to the last time I was in Cinque Terre with my roommates from studying abroad. Even though it had been five years since then, the town seemed very much the same as I remembered. While waiting for Mish and Daniel to arrive, Al and I enjoyed our own happy hour on our balcony (red wine has become our drink of choice). After Mish and Daniel settled in, we went to dinner at a cute little restaurant up the street from us. I indulged in Trofie Pesto pasta (unique to this region of Italy) and Al had sea bass and potatoes. Our first meal out in Italy was a success and so delicious. The restaurant even brought Al some gluten free breadsticks and bread which was nice and unexpected. They are extremely gluten free friendly here. In Como, we even saw that McDonald’s had gluten free hamburgers! (But hopefully we won’t stoop down to McDonald’s in Italy…) As had become our tradition, we concluded our evening playing cards and drinking wine.
We were awoken the next morning by many different sounds — the whistle of the train running by (the tracks were right next to our windows); Italian men yelling at each other, dogs barking, the bell tower of the church ringing, and kids playing at the nearby park. While the location of our apartment was amazing, we all agreed our sleep wasn’t great while staying here. But the charm, weather, and food of Cinque Terre made up for it. We spent our first full day exploring all five towns and hiking. We decided to head to the southern most town, Riomaggiore and work our way back north. We took the ferry from Monterosso to Riomaggiore, a train from Riomaggiore to Manorola (we learned the hiking trails were closed due to landslides several years ago). We then hiked from Manorola to Corniglia, a hike that took us several hours in the heat of the day but rewarded us with great views and gelato upon our arrival. After unsuccessfully finding the coastal trail (the signs were very unclear) we opted to take the train to Vernazza, walked around a bit and then trained it back to Monterosso. As the sun was setting we all jumped in the ocean, which turned out to be a little colder than expected, but felt super refreshing after a long day outdoors. We went out to dinner again and I got the same thing and Al tried Gnocchi al Pesto. Yay he likes Pesto sauce now!
Our last full day in Cinque Terre was spent relaxing on the beach and souvenir shopping and was concluded with drinks, appetizers and a view at a Pinterest worthy restaurant in the town of Manorola. Coincidentally, while at the beach, Al and I ran into our New Zealand friends (whom we had met in Slovenia) for the 3rd time. They joined as at the beach for a while. After watching the sunset in Manorola and heading back to Monterosso, we enjoyed our 3rd gelato in 3 days and they just seemed to keep getting better. Instead of wine, we drank limoncello spritzers while playing Euchre, which after a couple weeks, Mish and Daniel had gotten really good at. We were sad this was their last night as we will really miss their company! Overall, I think Al loved Cinque Terre as much as I did and it is definitely a place we would visit again as there are so many more hikes and places to explore.
On to Bologna!