Our late afternoon train to Cinque Terra lulled us with to sleep after walking around all day. When we woke up we had missed all five of the towns, ending up in La Spezia. After backtracking, running across tracks, and hopping three trains we wound up in Deiva Marina, a small tourist destination for locals. This still wasn't our goal, but it was a roof for the night.
A shuttle to the "campsite" left every hour. It was 6:49, and we were starving.
Derek: Damn it so much for groceries.
Me: You think we can make it?
We paused for a minute and raced down under the tracks, through the streets in a mad dash for anything edible. We missed the train by a good margin, and ended up waiting until 8, when we loaded ourselves in the back of an old beat up van next to the luggage. On the up side we made out with the best pizza I had in all of Italy.
(The window with green shutters just yelled my name, it's been closing slightly from the wind, and I'm afraid if it shuts completely this flare to bleed my pen will come to a close as well. The voice was Derek's, down on the street yelling up for laundry money. I threw two coins down and watched as he caught one, and bobbled the other letting it roll into the narrow street. Ten days in and we're just now doing laundry. I'm still holding onto these pants. Ten days in these pants and I'm still holding onto them. By now they may be holding on to me. )
Florence is calling to me, somewhat literally. I'm antsy for new adventures. Focus. Cinque Terra was our premeditated highlight of Europe, budgeting early a week's stay there, but after dipping into a shady abandoned hostel, weaving through back streets, and seeing masses of Bermuda shorts, cameras, and fanny packs, we wound up waiting at a hostel for an hour or so, waiting for them to open so we could try to scam a room. In the meantime I ate a cold can of pork an beans consisting of one full hot dog sliced in half and shoved into the can, and stole a giant lemon from a fenced off tree. While I was going for a third lemon Derek shot me a look, and I heard footsteps so I leapt down and sat next to my pack, looking guilty. It didn't matter thought because the bums didn't have any vacancy anyway. I'm glad I made out with their lemons.
We decided that Cinque Terra was a city that was more enjoyable on a postcard. I personally wasn't in the mood for a paved scenic hike riddled with bad graffiti. On to Rome!
Side note on Deiva Marina & Euro Camping:
Europeans have a different view of camping than here in the States. These pictures should illustrate this better than I could. We made the best of it though, and wound up meeting Christian and Ed, a father son tandem from Ottawa that shared our longing for the great outdoors. Christian, 46, and Ed, 75, were probably the most interesting people we met on the trip. Ed looked like a bear. Long white hairs sprouted from every other pore, but still hung to the skin as if reminding the world that they had once been dark and intimidating. Ed Bear was in his underwear, and made restless trips back and forth from the tent to a chair outside where Christian Derek and I were talking. When he permanently retired to the tent Ed served as Christians personal encyclopedia supplement on anything from detailed WWII battle details, to the history of Alpha Romero's. That's not to suggest that Christian needed much. This midlife jack-of-all-trades had a voice that soothed and eased us into his extensive anecdotes as dusk slowly segues to night. I was convinced that Christian paced dusk that evening. Moving fluidly from tales of his time as an opera singer, to his current endeavor of farming organic chickens, never once was I uninterested. Good ol' Christian and Ed Bear, opening a new door.
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