Chapter 3: Cinque Terre

I set off from Genova, looking at the road signs which gave me no help whatsoever. The road signs in Italy are maybe the worst things designed ever. There's a perfect 90-degree angle where you can see which exit points to which city, anything past that and you're dead as water. The road itself was one of the most picturesque roads on the trip. I came up with this little gem: the buzz of my engine complemented the sound of waves smacking against the rocky shoreline. Wow, talk about painting a landscape with words! Shakespeare would be jealous. The views were so nice I had to force myself to pay attention to the road. Eventually, the road elevated up past the shoreline and paying attention to the was no longer an issue.

The road leading to Cinque Terre were littered with potholes and had lots of winds and bends. I was paying so much attention to not crashing that I really didn't even realize that had made it Vernazza - the first city - until I saw the pastel colored building.

One fun fact I learned about Cinque Terre is that none of the towns have gas station, and I had just started to tap into my 2.5 L reserve tank. An Italian native stopped as I was re-started my Vespa to tell me that pushing my wasp up the mountain to Corniglia would be "not possible". After I assuring him it was possible, I kick started La Papera and ran alongside her in first gear - anything more and it surely would have been not possible.

I finally arrived in Riomaggiore sweaty and tired, ready for a bed to lie in. Unfortunately, that bed was in what I would call a one bedroom apartment with four bunk beds in it, but what the owner would apparently call a hostel. I wasn't too fidgety about it though and when one of the other guys in the hostel offered me a drink in the bar below I figured I was only staying one night, so I better make it count. I feel as though I chatted with the globe that night - along with two Americans, a Canadian and a Mexican in the hostel, the African pub owner came out to check on us, and the Swedish mom-daughter combo at the bar were making fun of our accent, or lack thereof, when we told the bartender "Grazie". The rest of the night was kind of a blur, but I did end up making it back to the single bedroom eight-bed apartment A-ok.

I spent the next morning in Cinque Terre, the plan was to visit Guvano Beach which lies just past Corniglia. To get to the beach you have to go thru the hiking trail, so I did 1/100th of the famous Cinque Terre hike no big deal. Funnily enough I ran into the two Americans I talked to last night running along the trail - they had apparently thought of going to the beach too, but someone on the train had told them it was shut down. Bummer.

I was running on fumes and decided to set my GPS to the closest gas station in La Spezia. It was only a 40-minute drive, but it was all uphill and I wasn't sure how much more distance my little 2.5L reserve tank could cover. Well the blog's getting kind of long, so I'll end it and call it a cliff-hanger. Tune in next year to see if I make it.