Went to Homestead Farm in Maryland a few weeks ago. We got there at around 13:00 and the heat index was probably slight above 100 °F. Insane… There weren’t a lot of peaches but there were tons of sour blackberries. My wife neither eats peaches nor berries (the only berry she likes is strawberry) so we didn’t buy any and we thought of that fruit picking as an exercise.
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July 1 – Rome Cavalieri
As previously mentioned, my journey from Cinque Terre to Rome was quite hectic but we eventually arrived in Rome at around 15:00. Since we were going to spend the next two days checking out the city, we planned to turn the afternoon into a relaxing retreat at our hotel, Rome Cavalieri—The Waldorf=Astoria Collection. The first thing we did after getting off the train was heading to the tourist information counter located near platform 24 in Termini to buy Roma passes. Roma passes allow you to skip lines at tourist attractions, enter the first two attractions for free, and give you three days of unlimited metro and bus rides within Rome.
I vaguely remembered that the hotel provided a shuttle bus service to and from Piazza Barberini. So we took the metro from Termini to Barberini (only two stops). When we got there, we couldn’t find the shuttle bus sign so I gave the hotel a call. They said the next shuttle bus going back to the hotel was at 16:00 and would be leaving from the front of Hotel Bernini Bristol. At 16:00, the shuttle came. It was a grey van with the hotel logo on the sides; would be really hard to spot it from a distance. The ride took about 30 minutes and gave us a tour of Via Vittorio Veneto and the Villa Borghese park.
The hotel sits on a hill in the northwest part of Rome overlooking the city. We only stayed for one night using Hilton points just to check it out. As a Hilton Diamond member, we were given access to the Imperial Club lounge on the 7th floor. At the Imperial Club lounge, they had drinks and light buffet changing 5 times a day. The balcony had a breathtaking views of historic Rome. We practically sat there through the entire afternoon thunderstorm and evening enjoying the food and views and making plans for the next two days. The room was a regular deluxe room featuring a king bed, gigantic bathroom with a gold plated shower knob, and a balcony with the same views as the Imperial Club. Just kidding about the gold plated thing. It was simply an amazing experience. We wish we could have arrived earlier and/or stayed longer.
July 2 – Ancient Rome, Spanish Steps, Pantheon Neighborhood
The breakfast was unbelievable. It was way better than the buffet at Hilton Arc de Triomphe. They had a jam table with like 30 different kinds of jams, a milk table with 10 kinds of milk, 5 kinds of pies, 5 kinds of cakes, fish, Japanese food, etc. I had photos on my iPhone but accidentally deleted all of them while upgrading to the 3.0 software. (Note to self: always always always backup!) We only spent 20 minutes for breakfast because we wanted to catch the 9:30 shuttle to town. Instead we should have spent 2 hours enjoying it. That was one of the biggest mistakes we made. Oh well, maybe next time.
So we checked out from the hotel and left at around 9:30. This time the shuttle bus was like one of those tour buses. People on the bus were looking at us like aliens because we were carrying huge bags I guess. The bus dropped us off the the same spot as it picked us up the day before. We then headed to another hotel that we were going to be staying for the next two nights to check in and drop off our bags before exploring the city. The hotel was in the Pantheon neighborhood so we decided to walk there because it seemed to be the faster way. We walked about 1.5 miles in about 20 minutes with bags.
The hotel was right on Via del Pantheon which means it was literally right by the Pantheon. We could see the Pantheon big and clear from the front gate. When we got there, we rang the bell and a lady came down to greet us. That kind of told us that it wasn’t really a hotel but was more like a B&B. As we walked into the building, we found that it had been under construction for some time and there were ladders, construction equipment, etc. set up everywhere from the ground to top floor. We were okay with it until we saw the room she gave us. It was probably a high ceiling floor; they cut it in half and stacked two rooms together. Look at where the window was from the picture below. The A/C unit routinely made a cracking sound every 15 minutes and woke me up several times. The bed probably had bugs because we woke up in the morning with bite marks on our arms and legs.
However, I have to say that the worst was the bathroom. It was nasty; so nasty that I was afraid of taking showers during those 2-3 days (but I did shower anyway). The doors in the shower stall were broken. The panels in the doors were broken as well. To make the matter worse, the height from the stall floor to the rotten wooden ceiling was maybe 5’11″. So if you are taller than 5’8″, you wouldn’t be able to take a shower standing up straight. Also the stall was so small that I hit the surrounding panels almost every time when moving my arms around. So seriously, from a scale of 1 to 10, I give it a zero (0) … except for the location. I give it a 10 for the location. The Pantheon neighborhood is known as one of the best places to stay in Rome and this hotel is right by the square. It’s lively at night with hundreds of restaurants, bars, and minimarts. It’s 3 blocks from Largo Argentina, which is a big hub for buses including the 64 and 40 lines that run between Vatican City and Termini.
After we had dropped off our bags at the hotel, we decided to do the reverse of Rick Steve’s Caesar Shuffle, which is a self-guided walk from the Colosseum to the Monument of Victor Emmanuel II. So with the reverse, after exploring the Pantheon, we walked to the Victor Emmanuel II monument, which took about 10 minutes. We checked out the museum inside but didn’t go up to the roof. Next we walked around Capitoline Hill before heading over to the Colosseum. We did the Colosseum before the Roman Forum because it was around noon so it was extremely hot—in the low 90s actually. Because of the heat, we walked past the Forum to the Colosseum for some shades.
We did the Colosseum and grabbed a bite to eat from one of those mobile street vendors. They were close and convenient but, man, they ripped people off like anything. €4 for a soda and also €4 for a hotdog. Actually, one of the buyers started complaining and yelling. We just got our food and found a shade to sit down and eat. Didn’t want to walk 5-10 blocks to find a restaurant. What we should have done was that we should have eaten before coming or packed lunch.
After lunch, we walked around the Roman forum before taking the metro to Piazza del Popolo. At Piazza del Popolo, we met this guy (Indian?) who tried to sell us roses. Well actually, he was trying to put roses in my wife’s hands but she moved away. He freaked out or something and started making angry faces. We just walked away and began window shopping along Via del Corso, which supposedly has the best shopping (and some of the most expensive) in Rome. We walked until we reached the Spanish Steps. Sat on the steps for a while but had to give up because it was so hot as we were facing the sun directly. We left and headed to the Trevi Fountain and then went back to the hotel on foot—probably a 30 minute walk. As soon as we reached the Pantheon, the rain starting pouring hard. We spent a few hours in the room waiting for the rain to stop before heading back out again for dinner.
OK dinner was pretty bad. With tons of good looking restaurants around the Pantheon, I don’t know how we managed to eat where we ate. I don’t remember the name but it was was awful compared to everything we had eaten thus far in Italy. We ordered a pizza and some seafood pasta. They forgot to put salami on the pizza so they guy just cut up some cold salami and threw the pieces on the pizza. The seafood pasta smelt pretty bad and shrimps were tiny. It must have been one of those tourist traps.
After dinner, we got some gelato and walked to Piazza Navona for exercise. There were a lot of performances and artists showing their work. That night we went to sleep as soon as we got back to room and hoped to get up and out asap.
July 3 – Vatican Museum, St. Peter’s Basilica, National Museum of Rome
I probably haven’t mentioned this, but the hotel provided simple breakfast like coffee, croissant, toast, etc. So we had breakfast there before heading over to the Vatican museum. From the Pantheon, it was very easy; we took a #40 bus from Largo Argentina, which was three blocks to the south of where the hotel was. Bus #40 is the express version of #64 so it stops less frequently. It is widely know that #64 buses can get very crowded. So watch out for pickpockets. The bus took us all the way to the Vatican City area. We still needed to walk another 10 minutes to get to the Vatican museum entrance.
We got to the museum around 10:30 and the line was just about to start getting long. We stood in line for about 30 minutes (luckily there were shades) before we got to go inside the building. It was muggy inside the museum. They probably just opened the windows instead of turning on AC units. There were very interesting paintings, sculptures, etc. However, after a while things started to look the same. To get to the Sistine Chapel, it was quite a long walk. We pretty much had to walk past every room.
The Sistine Chapel room was probably the biggest and most crowded room. They didn’t turn on artificial lights so the room was quite dark. It was hard to enjoy the paintings on the wall and ceiling because there were people everywhere pushing you left and right. We didn’t see a single available seat along the sides of the room. We stayed for a little bit before leaving because it was so muggy and we felt we needed some fresh air. I truly believe that the experience must be much better during non-summer months.
We had lunch at the Vatican museum cafeteria. The food was alright but the portions were a little small. After lunch, we took a walk to St. Peter’s Square. It was actually right next to the museum but on the opposite side of where we exited the building. The square was a huge open space in front of St. Peter’s Basilica. To get into the basilica, we had to go through metal detectors and people checking our clothes. There were quite a number of women who weren’t allowed to go inside because of their inappropriate clothing such as offensive t-shirts, tank tops, short skirts, etc.
St. Peter’s Basilica has to be the biggest church in the world. That’s probably a fact but we didn’t know it until we saw with our own eyes. It was so huge that it took us over 30 minutes to walk around the whole thing. There were also several little chambers to explore. You could climb up to the top of the basilica dome for a fee but we didn’t do it.
After we had finished with St. Peter’s Basilica, we took a #40 bus all the way across town to Termini. At Termini, we bought Leonardo Express tickets (train to the Rome Fiumicino airport) for our departure the following day. Next we walked over to the National Museum of Rome, which was just across the street from Termini. It was practically a ghost town around 14:00. I don’t know how much they usually charge for admission because we used had Roma passes, but I wouldn’t pay more than €7 to get in. Seriously, in my opinion, the National Museum of Rome doesn’t match up to the other big museums in Europe. If you have been to the British Museum, the Louvre, or the Vatican Museum on your tip, I would recommend skipping this one unless you are really into museums, ancient Rome, or just want to spend some time in a cool and quiet place. (Yes, this museum has air conditioning!)
We really wanted to sit down at a restaurant after we were done with the museum. So I looked up some Irish pubs in the area on my iPhone. Why Irish pub? So that we could sit, have a beer and catch up with some Wimbledon actions. Anyway, the closest one that came up was Mulligans Irish Pub on Via Del Boschetto. So we walked 10-20 blocks from Termini. When we got there, we found that it was closed! There were big padlock, chains and everything on the front door. What a bummer after such a long walk! I did a google search after we got back to the US and found that they had moved to a new location, in Trastevere to be more specific.
Luckily, we didn’t have to walk back because we were able to catch a #40 bus back to Termini. We then went to the Colosseum to take some photos at dusk before heading back to the hotel and calling it a day.
July 4 – Plane to DC
Last day of our trip—we were sad that it had finally come to an end. We had so much fun traveling and experiencing difference cultures during the trip. We will definitely be coming back to explore other places that we didn’t get a chance to visit this time. Most likely we will try to visit during the spring or fall to avoid the crowds and heat, especially in Italy.
Anyway, our itinerary was a short flight to Munich and then a transatlantic flight back to DC. The flight to Munich was scheduled for a 13:00 departure. We had breakfast at the hotel and checked out at around 10:00. We then took a #40 bus (yeah, again!) from Largo Argentina to Termini. From Termini, we hopped on a Leonardo Express train that took us directly to the FCO airport in 30 minutes. One thing about the train—according to Rick Steves, Leonardo Express trains leave from platform 24. Maybe it was true in the past, but when we were there it was leaving from platform 25. OK you might say what’s the big deal? Well, it was a big deal because platform 25 was probably a quarter of a mile down the train station. And when we were running with bags because the train was about to leave in two minutes, it was pretty rough.
Anyway, we made it. Got to the airport in 30 minutes. Checked it, went through security, had lunch, etc. It was pretty smooth after that until we got on the plane. The takeoff was first delayed by 10 minutes. So I pulled out my iPhone and started watching Zack and Miri Make a Porno. (Pretty funny movie actually) The captain then made a second announcement saying that they had to delay the takeoff for another 40 minutes. I was like okay we might still make it in time for the next flight. But then when I almost reached the end of the movie, I started to think that we might not make it in time and have to spend a night Munich. The plane finally took off shortly after that thought. The captain probably flew the fastest he could. When we landed in Munich, we ran through the airport, got our passports checked for the second time, and finally got to the gate. The gate agents told us to chill because the plane had been waiting for a lot of people on the Rome-Munich flight. They then checked our passports for the third time. Seriously, they could have communicated that to the other flight so that we didn’t have to run around like crazy people.
Anyway, we got on our flight. We found that our seat assignments were messed up. Fortunately, a lady was nice enough to swap her seat with me so that my wife and I could sit together. On the flight, they served two meals (or one? I forgot). I watched four movies and was interrupted many times but the public announcements. For some reasons, the first officer loved to update us in terms of the current location. For instance, we were flying above Amsterdam. He would activate the PA system, which paused the movie, and put on his tour guide hat for 5 minutes in 3-4 different languages. Overall the flight was really smooth. We flew Lufthansa and the plane (Airbus?) was almost brand new.
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June 28 – Train Journey to Vernazza, Monterosso, Fried Calamari
After very little sleep on an overnight train from Switzerland, we arrived at Firenze Campo di Marte station in Firenze or Florence at around 6:30–7:00. The train we wanted to take to Vernazza was scheduled for a 7:27 departure but we didn’t have tickets yet. Having not money at all, I was a quest to find an ATM. Normally every train station has at least one ATM machine. However, based on my observations, small stations in Italy don’t have one. I first tried to ask a lady in cafe for directions but she gave me this WTF look and said something in Italian that my brain couldn’t process. Luckily, the owner of the newsstand spoke English and told me I could find an ATM on the next block.
By that time, my next train to Vernazza was scheduled to arrive in 20 minutes so I ran to the ATM machine. That one block turned out to be a huge block. Got there, tried to withdraw €500 but the machine declined saying it exceeded the bank’s limit. I was like Whao? because we were able to withdraw €500 twice in Paris without any issues. I then tried 400, 350, 300 and it still wouldn’t let me withdraw. As time was pressing, right at that moment I was pretty pissed off at Italy for not giving me a warm welcome. Then for one last time I tried withdrawing €250 and it worked. Got the money, ran back to the station, bought tickets. The staff at the counter gave me another WTF look when I asked for tickets to Vernazza. He was like what Vernazza? A few seconds after he had collected his thoughts, he typed Vernazza into his tiny low-tech computer, pressed a few keys and boom! it dispensed two tickets. I should have clapped when that happened but didn’t. Cost me €8 per ticket.
The train arrived a few minutes after we got the tickets. It was a regional/local train so no reservation was needed. The train was so packed when we got on but luckily we found a seat for two. The ride took over 3 melting hot hours. Driving would take about 2:15 minutes according to Google Maps. Again the train was so crowded, and as it went on its route more and more people got on. Eventually there were no seats left on the train and people started standing in the aisle, in front of restrooms, etc. Some people kept walking up and down the train to find seats. The train didn’t have air conditioning, the windows were somehow locked, and people were sweating like they were water hoses. What wasn’t pleasant about it was when somebody with an odor problem walked past—man… let me tell you—I just wanted to pass out because of the after smell and how long it lasted. Anyway, I’m not saying that’s bad. It’s just how the locals roll. Nevertheless, I loved the experience.
As I remember, Rick Steves says in his books that you know when you get to Vernazza when you can feel the cold wind blowing as the train exits the Cinque Terre train tunnel. Well, in my case there was no wind. I knew the train arrived in Vernazza when I saw a station sign through a small gap between standing people. Actually I kind of knew it was the station after Corniglia. Anyway, we got off the train and called our contact, Daria Bianchi, to have her lead us to the room we had already reserved. So we talked on the phone. I couldn’t understand a word she said (not sure if she understood me) because the cell quality was so bad. I called her one more time and just said Bridge, Bridge, Bridge! and hung up. Basically I was trying to let her know that I was standing under the bridge (only one bridge in town). Five minutes later somebody showed up calling my name. It was David. No I didn’t know him before but he said his name was David and Daria sent him to show us to our room.
We started walking up the steps near the bridge (train station). After—I don’t know—6–7 minutes, we finally got to our room. It must have been over 200 steps. David told me that the room wasn’t ready yet because I was too early but it would only take about 20 minutes before the maid finished the cleaning. We gladly said ok and waited on the balcony enjoying the morning of Vernazza. Before David left, he asked me if I wanted to pay for the room now or later. I politely told him tomorrow since I didn’t have enough money because the ATM only gave me €250. I also asked what the total was. He said €95 per night for two nights. At the point, I was a bit shocked not because it was €95 per night but because it was 2 instead of 3 nights that I originally indicated when making the reservation. I quickly pulled up an email on my phone and showed him a confirmation from Daria stating 3 nights for €90 per night. He then made a quick call to Daria and she honored my reservation without any issues. I’ve heard from TripAdvisor and other travel sites that this kind of situation happens a lot. So make sure you have a copy of your reservation at the time of arrival and, if possible, call a day or two ahead of time to verbally confirm. In our case, we simply forgot to call because we were having so much fun strolling around Berner Oberland.
After the maid and David had left, we quickly showered and headed down to the main street for lunch. The main street at lunch time was like a zoo. There were tourists like us who stayed in Vernazza, those who stayed in the other towns, those who stopped by for a day on their cruise trips as well as locals from nearby cities. The Cinque Terre is like what Ocean City to the DC people I suppose. Anyway, we stopped by a take-out restaurant and got some pesto and salami focaccias before heading down the harbor where we sat down and enjoyed our lunch and cool sea breeze.
After enough food and sunburns, we headed back to the room for power naps. As it turned out, we passed out for almost 5 hours because he were so tired from the night before. What was funny was that while I was sleeping I kept hearing loud noises. Since we were right by the sea, I thought to myself that they were big waves crashing into the town. In my dream, the town was flooded and everything. I finally woke up at around 18:00 and found that those noises were trains passing by the station. Luckily, our room wasn’t near the tracks. I couldn’t imaging how loud the noises would be like if we stayed even closer than that.
Since it was almost dinner time, I woke my wife up and told her that we were going to walk to the next town for some seafood. She immediately got up and was so excited to go. However, I didn’t tell her that we were going to hike to Monterosso, which was the longest trail of all. For an average hiker, it would probably take about 90 minutes. For us, since we stopped a lot take photos and hiked slowly, it took over two hours. The first 30 minutes or so were rough because it was all uphill. My wife had already run out of breath several times by the time we reached the end of the trail. Needless to say, the views from the trail were spectacular. Like the views along California Highway One but more uninhibited.
Monterosso is the last town heading north into the Cinque Terre. It is resort-town like, the most touristy and usually overrun by visitors in the summer. We walked around town for a bit before sitting down for dinner at one of the busiest restaurants in the newer part of the town. Took 10 minutes to get a table, sat down and ordered fried calamari and shrimp mousse lasagna or something. It was probably the freshest calamari I ever had. The shrimp mousse thingy was great too but the portion was a little small. Got the check and found that they charged us €2.50 for tap water and €3 for bread. I kinda of knew that beforehand but wanted to see how much they could nickel and dime tourists. Let’s look on the bright side—after dinner we got some gelato from a nearby shop. A cone with two scoops cost about €1.50-2.
By the time we finished our gelato, it was almost 22:00 already. Before catching a train back to Vernazza, I had to get money again to pay for the room. I tried two ATM machines and both of them freaked out when I requested more than €250. So I took out €250 and rode a train back to Vernazza in rage.
Going to bed that night was easy as we were to tired. The noises from passing trains didn’t bother us anymore because it was easy to get used to. Think of it as the sound of big waves crashing into the coast. By the way, the room didn’t have an air conditioning unit, which could a problem to some people. For us, we opened the balcony door all night because the temperature was in the 60s.
June 29 – All Day Hiking: Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza
We slept in and woke up at 10:00. It was probably the best sleep we ever had on the trip because we didn’t set the alarm clock. While my wife was still sleeping, I headed down to the main street. The weather was so nice; temperature was in the 70s. I bought some croissants, water and juice, went back up to the room, and had breakfast on the balcony overlooking the town. Then after cold showers, we headed to the station and took a train to Riomaggiore.
Riomaggiore is the first town if you enter the Cinque Terre from the south. We got off the train and walked through the tunnel along the train tracks to the other side of town where the marina was located. Every town in the Cinque Terre has a marina for people to keep theirs boats. It’s also where most people sunbathe and jump into the sea. After he had checked out Riomaggiore’s marina, we walked back to the main street for lunch. We got some spaghetti carbonara and focaccia takeouts and sat down on a bench next to a few local grannies who were just having a chitchat.
We went back to the train station part of the town to hike to Manarola after finishing lunch and having our daily dose of gelato. The Via dell’Amore hike from Riomaggiore to Manarola is the easiest hike in the Cinque Terre. It’s more like a walk in my opinion. The path is wide and nicely paved. For an average person, it should take no longer than 25 minutes to reach Manarola unless you stop in the tunnel in the middle of the path and show your artistic skills. There is also a restaurant/cafe towards the end of the trail. We wished we had stopped there for some gelato instead of getting it before entering the trail.
We got to Manarola in no time. Manarola is a cute little town; probably half the size of Riomaggiore. We walked around a little and spotted a restaurant that we thought we would come on the next day. To get to the trail to the next town, Corniglia, we had to walk through the town passing the marina. The Manarola-Corniglia path was more hiking trail-like as it wasn’t paved and had a lot of ups and downs. It took us about 45 minutes to get the train station which was about 300 ft below the town. We decided to take a transit bus by the train station into town rather than climbing about 300+ steps from the hiking trail. Corniglia was really quiet when we got there, which told me if we wanted to stay in a more peaceful and less touristy town we would have to stay in Corniglia. We spent some time having coffee and snacks in the town’s little square. While my wife was waiting near the square, I attempted to walk down the marina (has to be 400+ ft below the town) but gave up half way because I couldn’t imagine myself walking back up.
We took a little green bus back to the train station and headed back to Vernazza. As it was around dinner time, we thought we should get a takeout and sit by the marina. Our dinner was pesto pasta with pesto sauce and spaghetti pomodoro. Enjoying our dinner while watching people pulling their boats in and local fishermen getting ready to go out was probably my most favorite part of the day. I loved the feeling of being out all day and coming back to the home base for a relaxing dinner.
After dinner, we went back to our room. While my wife was getting stuff done in the room, just before sunset, I headed up the Vernazza-Monterosso trail to a spot where I took a photo of Vernazza at dusk.
June 30 – More Hiking, Lobster and Mussel Pasta, Monterosso Beach
We slept in again. It was great not having to set an alarm. We pretty much rolled out of bed when we felt it was a good time to get up. Showered, and headed down to the train station. We took a train to Manarola and had lunch at a restaurant in the area that we had picked on the previous day. My wife ordered lobster pasta and I ordered mussel pasta. The food came and we found that the portion as a lot bigger than we thought. The mussels on my pasta were probably 2-3 times bigger than what I’d had in the US. My wife’s plate came with a whole lobster sitting on top of her pasta with some kind of garlic creme source. It was a really good meal. However, when we got the check there was €4 item again even he had asked them not to bring out the bread. We were quite surprised when the waitress told us that the charge was for the utensils and everything else on the table. Not sure that was normal or they tried to nickel and dime tourists for everything they could. Share your experience.
After lunch, we hiked to Riomaggiore for exercise and some gelato. While we were walking on the path, we saw a guy jumped over the handrail/fence to the rocky edge of the trail and cliff-dived 150-200 ft into the water. That was pretty awesome but unfortunately I wasn’t fast enough to capture the action on the camera. In Riomaggiore, we took a different route to the marina. Instead of walking through the tunnel, taking the trail along the coast gave us more exercise as the path was longer and made us go up and down a lot of steps.
We chilled at Riomaggiore’s marina for a bit before taking a ferry straight to Monterosso. The hourly ferry ride costs €8 per person. That’s a bit expensive considering a train ride, which comes more frequently, is faster, and only costs €1 something. Anyway, we thought of it as a sightseeing tour ferry. The ride allowed us to see how big each town was from a distance. From a quick visual comparison, Monterosso seems to be the largest; then Riomaggiore, Vernazza, Manarola, and Corniglia. In certain angles, Corniglia may appear larger because the whole town is sitting on a huge rock. The ferry ride stopped at every town except Corniglia. I wondered why but didn’t care enough to ask the boat crews.
The whole reason we came to Monterosso was swim in the sea and enjoy the beach. However, by the time we got to Monterosso it was almost 17:30. The ferry dropped us off at the old part of the town. It took us another 10-15 minutes to walk to the new part where the beach was bigger. The beach that you see is sectioned into smaller private beaches. The first “beach vendor” that we asked “How much?” gave us a furious look and said PRIVATE BEACH! I wasn’t sure if he didn’t understand what we asked or he was just pissed at the world. We moved on, asked another vendor adjacent to the first one and were given an “I don’t care” look. The next vendor gave us the answer we had been searching for. They said their beach would be closed by 19:00 and wanted to charge €10 per person! We walked away without any hesitation. Then we came across a public beach. What told us it was a public beach was 1) it was the tiniest section on the stretch. 2) it was packed! 3) the sand quality was noticeably different because the private beaches probably dumped all the rocks and stones there. Anyway, luckily, a vendor next to the public beach gave a special price since they would be closing in about an hour; €6 for two beach chairs, an umbrella, and two fresh water shower coupons. We took the offer and jumped into the water.
It was freezing cold! Well, at first anyway. I didn’t expect it to be that cold since it had been sunny all day and at that time the temperature was still in the high 70s or low 80s. It took a few minutes before the body got used the water temperature. Also, the private beaches had probably been dumping rocks in the sea as well because my feet couldn’t feel anything but rocks when I tried to touch the ground.
We started packing up as they closed the beach. The train station was full of people leaving Monterosso. We wanted to take showers and get changed back in our room before having dinner. We got on a wrong train heading to the south without a stop in Vernazza. Luckily, it stopped in Riomaggiore where we got off and caught another local train back to Vernazza. After taking care of our business, we headed down to the main street in our home base and got a pizza takeout. We went to sit by the marina to eat. It was by far our favorite spot to hang out and enjoy everything Cinque Terre.
July 1 – Hectic Day
We knew it was going to be a rough day because when we tried to buy tickets to Rome (via Pisa) on the previous day but the staff at the train station told us there was a train-related accident around the Pisa area and all trains were cancelled. We were simply told to come back in the morning and check. According to many experienced visitors, check back tomorrow’s and maybes mean negative. So we showed up at 7:30, tried to get our tickets but the staff said he could only get us to La Spezia. We went ahead and buy the tickets because there was nothing better we could do than trying to wing it. We waited for almost an hour for the train to La Spezia. The ride took about 40 minutes, and when we got to La Spezia we found that there were long lines at the ticketing counters as well as the information booth. Luckily, somebody told us that there was a special bus leaving every hour to Pisa from a street near the station. So we just followed a few people on the same boat to the bus. We were lucky enough to be the last two people to get on that bus.
Honestly I was kind of glad that there were quite a number of people in the same situation. The bus ride to Pisa was supposed to take about an hour. However, the bus driver got lost a few times in Pisa while trying to find Pisa Centrale train station. An american tourist had to pull out a GPS navigator and helped the driver with directions. Finally we arrived at Pisa Centrale and it was totally insane. The lines were huge. People were walking and running around in confusion. While I was standing in line to get tickets from an automated machine, I found out that the trains to Rome up on the giant billboard were all cancelled. At that point, I started to feel that there might be a possibly that it might not be able to get to Rome that night (by train at least). We walked over to the information counter and asked for advice. A member of the staff told us that there was a train leaving in two minutes to a small town and from there we could take another train to another town and one more to Rome. Although he was really nice but his advice was simply useless for us because we didn’t have tickets yet and the ticket lines were really long.
Fortunately, we met an American couple who told us that they were going to Rome as well and just exchanged their old tickets for new ones that would take them to Rome via Firenze instead of the cancelled direct route. We went ahead and lined up at one of the automated machines (in line for 30 minutes) and bought the same exact tickets. At the point, our original plan of spending a few hours checking out the leaning tower of Pisa and the area just disappeared in the air. In any case, we were glad we had valid tickets to our final destination.
The train from Pisa to Firenze was again super packed. My wife and I had to split up and sit separately. A few things happened on the train—train conductors and controller were seriously checking tickets and fining people who didn’t validate their tickets in one of those yellow machines at the originating stations. The guy next to me was fined €20 (for two tickets) for not validating them. A man in the back of our train we handcuffed and removed from the car by the train controller. I wasn’t sure if he didn’t have a valid ticket or because of something else. I tried to asked the Italian lady across from me but she kept speaking back in Italian. The guy next to me tried to translate it in spanish as well I guess? Anyway, the ride took two hours but felt like eight.
At the Firenze main station, we found that our train to Rome was delayed for 15-20 minutes. Very normal in Italy. It finally arrived and we quickly walked to the assigned car, which was the farthest one on the platform. We got on and found ourselves sitting next to an old couple who kept looking at us every 5 minutes. It was freaky but couldn’t care less because our train was a EuroStar Italia train meaning it was the best train you could possibly ride in Italy. The ride took two hours and we were glad to finally arrive in Rome.
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June 25 – Train to Switzerland
Heading to Gimmelwald — our train from Paris Gare de l’Est to Interlake OST, Switzerland (via Basel SBB) was schedule for an 8:24 departure. We woke up really tired because of lack of sleep (didn’t get back to hotel until midnight). We showered, finished packing and went down the restaurant for breakfast buffet. We stuffed as much as we could down our throats in 15 minutes before catching a metro to the train station. Arriving at the station a bit early gave us time to rest. We got on a TGV train and found ourselves sitting cross a young American couple. Don’t remember if I have already mentioned this, but throughout the entire trip we saw, heard and ran into Americans everywhere. Recession? What recession? Right? I would say a lot of them were exchange students and family with kids. Anyway, we were so glad that our seats faced the direction that the train was heading. We absolute hate facing the opposite direction.
The train was almost full but the ride was smooth and comfortable. We changed trains at Basel SBB and only had to wait a few minutes before the next train took off to Interlaken. The train arrived at Interlaken OST at around 14:00. Interlaken is the gateway to the Berner Oberland. We spent a few minutes getting our tickets to Gimmelwald as well as the ones that would get us to Italy. Since we ate so much for breakfast, 14:00 was just the right time for lunch. We lunched at a food court in a supermarket called COOP because we didn’t want to put our bags in lockers (about €5 per locker, which is still way cheaper than £8 per bag at the bag-check facility in St Pancras station in England). COOP is similar to Safeway or Giant over here. The food at the food court is like Ikea food. They look so good in the photos but taste the opposite. I’ll just leave it as that.
Before getting on another train to our destination, we bought some drinks and food from the supermarket because they were a lot cheaper than getting from regular stores or restaurants. For instance, as far as I remember, a bottle of water was 2-3 CHF (Swiss francs. 1 CHF ~ $1) and a bottle of Coke was 3.50+ CHF. COOP sold one for about 0.60 CHF. Anyway, to get to Gimmelwald from Interlaken OST, we had to take a local train to Lauterbrunnen, then walk to a bus stop, take a bus to Stechelberg, and then take a cable car to Gimmelwald. The whole shabang took about an hour.
As soon as we got off the cable car at Gimmelwald station, we were greeted by this calm, relaxing, sleepy feeling. I think we juset felt in love with the village and its surroundings at first sight. We walked uphill a little and literally the third house on the right was Esther’s Guest House where we stayed for two nights. Esther was there expecting our arrival. She gave us room #5 with a private bathroom. However, the bathroom wasn’t in the bed room; it was down the hallway. So we got two keys and were told to lock the bathroom after every use. The room seemed smaller than it looked on her website. Nevertheless, it was really cozy and big enough for both of us. It had a roof window that we could stick our heads out and look around.
That afternoon we just passed out for a few hours after traveling all day and woke up in time for dinner at Mountain Hostel, which was a 30 second walk from Esther’s. Mountain Hostel is the ultimate backpacker’s hostel in the area. Most of the people we saw there were American and Canadian. How to spot Canadians? One simple way; almost 100% of them will have Canadian flags on their packs. It’s their way for showing patriotism and saying “We are not Americans”. Anyway, we met this guy from Colorado and we talked for a bit. He was traveling alone as his wife wasn’t into this kind of things. He mentioned that he kept coming back to Gimmelwald every now and then because of his love for its surroundings and atmosphere. Later on in the trip, we met another couple from LA and they mentioned they once stayed at Mountain Hostel 20/30 years ago when there wasn’t even hot water yet. Now there is an Internet-connected computer, free WiFi connection, and, of course, hot water.
June 26 – Gimmelwald, Mürren, Schilthorn
On the previous day, I asked around what the best strategy would be to get up to Schilthorn considering that the stormy weather we were going to be having for the next few days. Everybody we talked to recommended the same thing; wake up early and if you see a tiny bit of blue skies, just go. So I took their advice, woke up at 7:00 and felt so refreshed as we went to bed at around 22:00 instead of 02:00 like we did on the previous days.
Woke my wife up, got dressed and took a cable car up to Schilthorn via Mürren and Birg. We got combo tickets, which included breakfast at Schilthorn Piz Gloria and round trip tickets for 85 CHF per person. Some people actually buy one-way tickets to the top and hike 5000 ft down to Gimmelwald. In any case, the ride took about 30 minutes and while we were in the cable car, it was so foggy and started snowing/raining. So we didn’t get to see much of the scenery. The only thing that was cool was a bunch of goats climbing the mountain.
One thing I haven’t mentioned is that for this trip we decided to test our luck by only packing rain jackets and long sleeves base layers. We figured that it’d been sunny the temperature would have been in the 50s at the top and 70s in Gimmelwald. Bad idea, I’ll tell you. The next time I go to the Swiss Alps in the summer, at least a fleece is going with me. Schilthorn 8:30 in the morning in June wasn’t very warm. In fact, it was hovering around 30-34 °F and all we had on was a couple layers of t-shirts, base layer and rain jacket. Since the weather was awful at the time, we decided to enjoy breakfast buffet in the revolving restaurant.
I hate to complain, but the food (scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, etc.) there was terrible. It was like leftovers cooked by little kids. Anyhow, we sat there for two hours waiting for the weather to calm down and clouds to clear out but they never did. So we left the restaurant and walked around the cable car station looking at souvenirs and stuff for a while. Suddenly out of nowhere, we started to see tiny bits of blue skies so we decided to go out on one of the trails. After on 5 minutes on the trail, there was some sunshine and the cloud and fog had cleared out. We were able to enjoy the scenery from the top for about 10 minutes before another big cloud came in with rain. As the Rick Steves and the locals say, it’s impossible to predict the weather condition in the mountains way ahead of time. The best you can do is to spend more days in the area or just wing it and hope for the best. In our case, no matter how crappy the weather was we still enjoyed it very much.
We headed down from Schilthorn to Mürren for lunch and some hiking in the afternoon. We stopped by a COOP and grabbed some sandwiches, drinks and strawberries. Before heading to Allmendhubel, which was 650 ft uphill from Mürren, we probably spent an hour walking to different trails because we kind of got lost 
. Anyway, originally we planned to have our lunch when we got to the destination, but just after 15 minutes of hiking my wife got really tired and demanded her lunch right away. Luckily, there was a hut with a little bench on the side of the trail where we could sit and eat.
After we finished forcing hard sandwiches and warm strawberries down our throats, we continued our journey by taking an off-trail path (shortcut?). It took us another 75-90 minutes before we reached Allmendhubel. There wasn’t much there apart from a playground, restaurant and funicular station. We sat there, ate more food, and just enjoyed the nature. Hiking down was so much simpler since we took the properly paved trail. The view from the trail was breathtaking and finally saw some Swiss cows that we thought we might never see on our trip. Once we had reached Mürren, we took a cable car back to Gimmelwald.
We hiked around Gimmelwald a little before having a pizza at Mountain Hostel. I’ve got to admin that they make pretty good pizzas. That night we went to bed early again because of Esther’s 9:30 check-out policy.
June 27 – Interlaken, Spiez, Train to Italy
Woke up early, checked out at 9:30, paid 240 CHF (ouch..!) for two nights. Oh, I forgot to mention that Esther’s place had a public Internet-ready computer and free WiFi. Every room gets 15 minutes of free Internet per day on the computer. After that you will need to pay (forgot the rate). I was able to connect my iPhone to the free WiFi to check e-mails, catch up with things, and read Federer’s interview where I found out about Michael Jackson’s death from one of the questions asked by a reporter.
After we’d checked out, we took a cable car back down to Stechelberg, then a bus to Lauterbrunnen, a train to Interlaken OST, and another train to Interlaken West. We put our bags in a huge locker so that we could spend the afternoon walking around and hiking easily. Because we didn’t buy a map of Interlaken, we were initially lost. I know… how can you get lost in Interlaken right? Anyway, we found Unterseen, which is a district in Interlaken. There wasn’t much there so we made an educated guess and walked along the canal that cut through the town in the hope that we would end up at either Thun or Brienz lake. After over an hour, we found Thun lake and it was huge. We just chilled by the lake before walking back to the train station in the rain.
Once we got back to the station, we took a walk in one of the directions that we never did and finally found the town center. There were a bunch souvenir shops, Mickey D’s, watch dealers, casino, hotels and Hooters. Yes, there is a Hooters in Interlaken. Who would have thought?! Apart from those mentioned, a few museums, and Metro-Bar on the 18th floor of the ugliest building in town, there wasn’t much to Interlaken. Before we left Interlaken for Spiez, we grabbed a quick bite to eat at Interlaken’s flagship Mickey D’s restaurant. A chicken burger, fries, a large Coke (looked like a small in the US), and six chicken wings (nice!) cost me about 20 CHF. That’s almost $19. Insane! I also tried to the free WiFi but it required registration with a valid Swiss cell phone number.
After finishing every piece of the fries, we took a train to Spiez. Spiez is a neat town and located at the south bank of Thun lake. We didn’t put our bags in a locker this time because we literally had no more Swiss money left and didn’t want cash out from an ATM because in just a few hours we wouldn’t be needing anymore CHF. Having said that, we lugged our bags downhill, walked around a bit, and came back to wait for our night train.
At night the station was a bit frightening because there were a bunch of wannabe gangstas around the station. Not only they were around, they were running, cycling around half drunk with scissors. This kind of shocked me because in my perception there wasn’t anything like this for Switzerland, let alone Spiez. I was really hoping that it was a rare exception. Anyway, as soon as our train arrived we got on and made our way to the assigned compartment. Since our tickets were for a 4-couchette compartment, we were daydreaming that there wouldn’t be any roommates. And as expected, our wish didn’t come true. There were two (Guess what?) Americans sleeping on the lower beds. We quickly climbed up to our beds and tried not to disturb them. Just before I lay down on the bed, the car attendant stopped by and asked for our tickets and passports. I was a bit skeptical about handing over my passports but I guessed it was ok since Rick mentions it in his books.
It took a while for me to fall asleep because 1) the train was going through a mountainous area so it was maneuvering left and right, which gave me motion sickness 2) I was woken up a few times just before getting in the zone by people in neighboring compartments arguing with the car attendant (?) in Italian.
