Caciucco

Thanks, I really enjoyed this report. Lots of interesting points and good photos.

Moomba

I have been keeping an eye on this thread as you have added your posts.

What a wonderful holiday you must have had. All that lovely food and spectacular scenery must have been fabulous to experience.

Thanks for taking the time to post your anniversary trip here on FT.

Spymon

Thanks Caciucco, glad you have been enjoyed the report so far.

Thanks Moomba, the food definitely exceeded my expectations as did the whole trip. It probably helped that quite a few of my work colleagues had been less than enthusiastic about their trips to Italy so my expectations before leaving had been suitably lowered. I suppose if you don't like art or Italian food that much you would probably get a little bored of an itinerary like ours.

Anyway, with that in mind it's time to try and finish this one off!

Spymon

It was a glorious sunny day on the Italian coast and we decided to enjoy the 5 villages that make up the Cinque Terre. We made our way down to the station to get our tickets and see which trails were open. Sadly the cost of the train tickets had doubled in the last week and instead of being able to buy 4€ each way day tickets we had to splash out 16€ day tickets. The day tickets included access to all open trails, trains, buses and Wi-Fi at the train stations which came in handy to check in for our flight home as well as for some over indulgent Snapchatting…

We started off taking the train one stop to the village number five, Monterosso. During the day the trains that link the villages of the Cinque Terre always look like they are busy but in reality there are usually plenty of seats. Though the complete lack of luggage space for anything more than a briefcase or jacket adds to the slightly chaotic boarding and alighting.

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Safely aboard the train and a few minutes later we saw a strip of bright blue sea and the train pulled in to Monterosso station.

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The village is split into two, the new town where the train arrives and the historic old town, damaged by the floods a few years ago. The new town consists of a road with some cafes, bars and restaurants and the beach in front of them. Monterosso is the only village in the Cinque Terre with a sandy beach. However, the sand is imported by the locals each year to top up the beach. The other villages really only have rocks on which to sunbathe.

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We walked down the street looking for a cheap pastry and coffee, but nothing looked great, so we enjoyed the atmosphere and strolled across to the old town where we encounter the Wonderland bakery picking up some lovely croissants. I particularly enjoyed these pistachio paste filled treats, why are they so hard to find back home?

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We found a spot on the square for coffee, it worked but nothing more.

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We consult our Rick Steves suggested walking tour and do a quick lap covering the churches and then head up to the cemetery for a fantastic view before strolling back to the station for our next village, Corniglia.

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We took the bus up the hill rather than braving the stairs which proved to be a wise choice. We again followed Rick's advice for the best walking route in town on the way stopping off for to buy some giant sandwiches from Butiega, fresh cut and made to order. We continued walking to the top of the village taking in the sights before stopping to enjoy our picnic.

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These were amazing sandwiches from Butiega and both of us felt fully fuelled for the afternoon ahead.

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We then took the scenic walk down to the station via the zig zag stair case. I really enjoyed the fantastic views, great people watching and the sense of smug satisfaction on getting the most out of the village.

From here it was on to village two, Manarola. Again we followed our trusty guide book and did a gentle climb uphill and skirting the edge of the vineyards. We enjoyed magnificent views looping around the edge of town followed by a gentle descent downwards to pick up a delicious gelato from Caffee Mexico on our way back to the station.

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It was now early evening when we boarded the train to the final village, Riomaggiore. Whilst in some ways this was the least interesting of the villages, with one large street of restaurants and a harbour area it provided the classic Cinque Terre photo op with the tall brightly painted houses from a vantage point by the harbour. This spectacular view cones out of nowhere and makes visiting Riomaggiore worth the effort.

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Whilst not the most exciting stop it would probably make a great place for some early evening drinks. Sights seen we got the train back to Vernazza for dinner.

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We headed down to the waterfront and decided to have our one and only proper pizza of the trip. The pizzas were cheap, fresh and at the level of Pizza Express.

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They hit the spot and the view from our table of the sun setting behind the coastline was hard to beat. The only thing that spoilt it was some kind of mother and daughter sex talk that covered everything from protection to piercings that we'd really not wanted to hear. Not even the table of drunk English ladies could drown these two out...

We grabbed some espressos and headed home via a quick Wi-Fi stop at the station. The Italian adventure was drawing to a close.

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Spymon

We were up early that morning as we had an early afternoon flight from Pisa. I grabbed some pastries from the foccaceria whilst Ms Spymon waited at the station with the luggage.

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Train Regionale 21178
Depart: Vernazza 08:43
Arrive Monterosso 08:46
Seats: Unreserved

We took the regional train to Monterosso where we changed onto the Intercity train to Milan which we'd take as far as Pisa. Unlike in France where every platform has a composition de trains or even at home where you have an idea if coach 1 is at the front or rear of the train, in Italy you have to know. Unfortunately with a platform of tourists nobody did until it was too late creating chaos. When half the station is in a tunnel it's worse. Cue much scurrying on the trains arrival as everybody realised they'd been waiting in the wrong place. We had quite the dash to carriage 2.

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Train Intercity 651
Depart: Monterosso 09:03
Arrive: Pisa Centrale 10:17
1st Class, Carriage 2, Seats 51 and 52

These Intercity trains on this route seem to be from another era of train travel. We had a big compartment with two sets of three seats facing each other. There was quite a bit of luggage space.

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Ms Spymon and I were soon joined by another couple as we headed off towards Pisa. We were enjoying our pastries and they had set up some sort of improvised and rather messy picnic. The seats were comfortable and thankfully we were not joined by any more occupants as between the four of us and our bags there was not much space left. I spent some time working on writing notes for the report and before we knew it we had arrived at Pisa.

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Unfortunately the airport train was being upgraded and was instead replaced by a tiny little airport bus for the short trip to the airport.

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On arriving at Pisa Airport we thought there had been a mistake and we'd just been dropped off at an out of town shopping centre. The low rise terminal building, the landscaping, the close proximity to town as well as the lack of a giant control tower or the sight of aircraft taking off and landing had us confused.

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Flight BA 605
Depart: Pisa (PSA) 13:05
Arrive: London (LHR)
Euro Traveller Seats 17E and 17F

We ambled off in the direction of the building and luckily found the at the BA desks were right by the entrance.

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We were soon checked in and Ms Spymon received a huge shock when her giant backpack was significantly underweight after she had spent the last two weeks complaining that it would never be under the 23KG limit. Security was reasonably straightforward though I'm sure I had a problem with some think electronic in my bag, either iPad or camera.

The departures area was crowded with almost no seating other than at the gates. Feeling tired we picked up an over-priced coffee each to boost out energy. All was looking good so we headed upstairs to then Non-Schengen gates for a passport check and somewhere to sit. It was around this time we noticed a delay had been posted due to a late departure from LHR but nothing major, in fact it was advantageous as we didn't want to arrive too early in London anyway. We waited some more and thankfully the BA App kept us updated on the delay as the airport staff were clearly not too interested in doing so. About 40 minutes after the scheduled departure time we begin to board the aircraft. No status and no Club ticket so we joined the queue with everybody else.

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We were in 17E and F and for some reason known only to himself the man in 17C was rather memorable, he was certainly not familiar with what lightening can do at an airport.

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We'd settled in by this time and had started reading through Highlife to pass the time. At this point the rain came down and the thunder rumbled.

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Our captain announced that the Italian ground staff had been called in until the storm had passed and we would then be on our way. Time passed, the thunder rumbled, the lightning flashed and the man in 17C grumbled on about how in a developed country it was ridiculous that they didn't think it was a good idea to start flying a plane in to a lightning storm. Interestingly he seemed to forget he was travelling to a country that can't run trains due to leaves on the line, the wrong kind of wind, rain, snow, fog… You name it and it will stop something from running. The hour long wait and monologue was punctuated only by a brief drinks run from the cabin crew to keep us entertained. The monologue continued as a few flights came in to land, including one from an airline clearly trying to wind us up.

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Thankfully it was soon time for take-off and we had a lovely view over Pisa including a quick glimpse of the leaning tower. The remainder of the flight was uneventful. We had a snack box with a very small roll and a very small cake. Both were quite nice but could have done with being a touch bigger. I also enjoyed a G&T and Ms Spymon a Bloody Mary.

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Hopefully BA don’t get rid of the free food on short haul, it really breaks up the flight and helps it pass much more quickly. Mr 17C was still trundling along by the time I had finished Highlife and had started on the trip report. It was soon time to land and we passed through the clouds of London and landed safely at LHR.

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It was a relatively short walk from our gate to border control. Unfortunately I got stuck behind someone who was struggling with the E-Gates. I had that feeling that if I was called to use that particular gate something was going to go awfully wrong. As I placed my passport down in the reader a large siren went off as if I had just committed treason or worse… Shame faced I walked over to the border control agent who had a bit of a chuckle, checked my documents and waved me through.

We headed off to the Piccadilly line and trundled off towards West London on the way to my Grandma who we knew was looking forward to hearing about our trip. After a few hours of catching up we skipped the usual Italian restaurant and settled for the family favourite of Naayab where we'd been going for years.

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Surprisingly and in a way sadly we had the restaurant to ourselves for the whole night and enjoyed our food immensely as always. Dinner was over and it was time to head back to crash at my Grandma's for the night. The trip was finally over barring the train ride home to Canterbury. It had been one epic adventure and an amazing anniversary for us. Somehow or other we knew we'd be heading back to Italy sometime soon, the desire to see Milan in the sunshine, the modern art in Venice and have a classic pizza in Naples is very strong indeed.

roadwarrier

Thank you very much for sharing. This was really a pleasant read. May you and Mrs Spymon have many happy anniversaries to come.

Seat 2A

This is a real tour de force, Spymon! Thank you for your excellent photography of everything from trains to cathedrals to fine dining. You've inspired me to head right out and upgrade from my planned lunch at one of our many Thai restaurants to a rather more gourmet dinner at Lavelle's Bistro here in downtown Fairbanks. ^^

VH-RMD

Great report, nice to see other transport forms.

oneworld82

great to see a post about Turin, where I lived for ~18 months! It's a nice, underrated city!

oneworld82

Baked Brie in Alaska sounds like a winner to me...!

Spymon

Thanks roadwarrier, pleased that you enjoyed following our anniversary adventure.

Thanks Seat 2A, your comments mean a lot as the undisputed master of rail based trip reports. Hope you enjoyed Lavelle's!

Glad you liked it VH-RMD. If you enjoy reports from the rails read a few of my others which cover India, France and the UK.

Turin was indeed a great city to spend a few days. It set the bar really high for the food on the rest of our trip, perhaps too high!

adampenrith

Great TR

beautiful pics

having just come back to Australia from Europe- it was wonderful to relive our experiences.

While we only did trains in Switzerland, we decided not to do the musuems as there were too many tour groups - so we plan to return in the off season.

you captured the essense of italy