cinque terre.

We hopped on the 10:30 train to Pisa and then took the train from Pisa to Monterosso. Today we decided to head up to northern Italy to visit the infamous villages of Cinque Terre. Five fishing villages surrounded by the Mediterranean sea are connected by a long trail that leads straight through every city. We decided to do the hardest hike first and then end easy. The Gorilla and I both had the realization that the gelato was getting to us, and the endless nights of pasta needed to come to an end. For about the first hour of our hike, we had to stop every five minutes to "take a look at the scenic view" or other wise known as taking a breather. I sure got my work out for the week. We hiked through the first village and then stopped in the second for lunch. We ate along water and decided that because it was a nice sunny day we deserved gelato. Again with our reasoning, but hey, good weather is a good reason to eat good gelato. I took nearly 200 hundred pictures, let out about 2 million and a half toots and told the Gorilla silly stories while singing songs. We finally finished the hike around 5:30 and we decided to stay to watch the sunset at a restaurant on a cliff facing the water. We ordered wine and cheese and chatted with a couple from Wisconsin. Finally, when the sun went down, we headed to the train station to catch the 7:52 train back to Florence. On the way home we had to stop in Pisa but for some reason we were not able to get a ticket in Cinque Terre to get all the way back to Florence. And just as we stepped off the train in Pisa we were able to hop aboard a train to Florence. I convinced the Gorilla that we would be fine with out a ticket because so many times when we have bought tickets, they never check. However they obviously checked today. Luckily we had cute smiles on today and the ticketer told us that we could get off at the next stop and buy a ticket to Florence or else it was going to cost us a 115 euro to make it back to Florence. 50 euro each for riding the train back without a ticket could have been our penalty but instead we took his advice and got off the train two stops before Florence. Well I might have caused some havoc because we didn't buy tickets, at least I wasn't pulling a Gorilla and not have a single euro on me. Clearly I had to come to the rescue and buy tickets for myself and the Gorilla. I was able to buy mine with out a problem but the Gorilla took too long trying to find money and putting it into the slot that the machine canceled the ticket and gave her a credit for the amount. The Gorilla started freaking out but luckily I just happen to have 5 extra euro on me and I bought her another ticket. The best part of this whole fiasco was that they didn't even check our tickets on this train ride home. Typical. Exhausted from a day of splendor and delight, I climbed into bed and started to type this post and began watching "Into The Wild" but fell asleep before the credits came one. Best day abroad!