Today we traveled from Manarola in Cinque Terre, Italy; to Brussels, Belgium. It’s quite a tiring journey. Learning from our previous mistake of missing the ferry, we planned out how long we’d take to get to the airport in Genoa, Italy AND added an hour just to be safe. Luckily we did that. Cos the train ride we got HAPPENED to be the slow train (we didn’t even know there was a fast one and a slow one). We sat fidgeting in our seats wondering how much SLOWER this train could be, and got ready to race to the airport.
Y: What is this… even a beca is faster than this! [beca = trishaw]
Me: Of all the Malay words you remember, it’s beca -_-
Y: It’s a funny word
Me: Thank god we left an hour earlier just in case…
What we did the whole day:
> 10-minute train ride
> 15-minute wait
> 1 hour 45-minute train ride
> run to catch a taxi
> 15-minute taxi ride
> check in and wait at airport
> 1 hour 15-minute flight
> Metro train
> walk
All in all, it took us 8 hours of struggling with our heavy bags (backpacker fail) to get from one place to another. The only thing I ate all day was a sandwich and water. By dinner time I was ready to devour an animal and dramatized to Y that my body was going in shock. The first nice restaurant we bumped into had steak and entrecote on the menu so we walked straight in. Was quite thankful for a change in food seeing we had a ton of seafood in Cinque Terre…
I had a rare steak with red wine, but got hungry 6 hours later -_-
Tomorrow we go to the festival in Leuven! Another train ride but who cares (I’ve never taken so many trains in my life) but we’ll be staying put to paartayyy for a few days!!!
This morning I woke up next to a lemon. It’s not a secret message or anything, but a proper bright yellow lemon. First I was like, ‘what the fu..’ then my head started hurting and I collapsed back to bed. We were both so hungover that it took us hours to get to the train station and by the time we did, we’d JUST missed the train and had to wait an hour. I scolded Y for being so impatient like a child, and she retorted, “It’s just habit. In London, when you see the Tube’s gonna take 3 minutes, you’re like oh my god, so long!”
It seems like my holiday with Y has been weeks long even tho it’s been only a week… because we’ve done SO many new and awesome things! Today I finally fullfilled my lifelong dream of swimming in the sea in the nude. I’ve been wanting to do that for ages! First of all, I love swimming in the sea, and second, I love being naked. I mean, it’s so liberating to run around outside in the sun naked! Other places I’ve done that were in Tioman and Bali, but I never got to swim properly in deep sea and sunshine completely nude. Felt so freaking great!
I woke up early to use the internet cos I was deprived of it for a week. Then we packed our beach bags with everything we’d need for the whole day and I wore my sneakers for a comfortable trek.
Cinque Terre consists of five colourful seaside towns that sit in a row on steep cliffs right next to the sea and you can get between them via hiking or train. In order of West to East, they are – Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore. (I never thought I’d memorize all their names but I have!) Most recommend hiking so you can take in the different angles of the towns and gorgeous scenery, and explore all its nooks and crannies.
Copied from one of their tourist boards: “Cinque Terre was built over a thousand years by peasant farmers who transformed the steep cliffs into fertile terraces to grow agricultural produce. The delicate balance between natural elements and the human tail generated a unique landscape, and is now a UNESCO World Heritage site.”
Oh by the way, it’s pronounced ‘cheen-qoo tehr-reh’, the Italian way. We initially pronounced it the French way (duh us) till someone corrected us.
In the morning, we shared a freshly-made farinata pesto (farinata = chickpeas) at Il Discovolo, a bakery just down the lane from our guesthouse.
After eating it on a bench, we went to buy a 2-day hiking & train pass (18 euros) for each of us at the train station. What we’ve discovered… is that we could have saved money by NOT buying the train tickets here. Noone has checked our tickets. Ever. And we never saw any of the Italians buy tickets too. (Cue phrase: “It’s okay, it’s Italy.”)
We walked from Manarola to the town closest to La Spezia, which is Riomaggiore. The easy walk is said to take 20 minutes on the map but we took an hour cos we’re so busy taking silly pictures on the way. Also… it could be that it’s considered Italian time i.e. whatever time they give you, you multiply it by 3 or 4. Along Lover’s Lane are many locks dangling with couples’ names on it, and some written on rocks and the walls, and even carved on aloe vera leaves. I had my crayons so I wrote ‘Cloyce’.
