flexibility...

So I knew that there was a train strike happening from Saturday at 9:00pm to Sunday at 9:00pm and was prepared to make adjustments. What I didn't know was that nobody at any train station really knew what that meant. So we bought our tickets from Lugano to Levanto, Italy (at the famous Cinque Terre). The lady at the ticket office told us there would be no way we would make our 15 minute connection in Milan and that we would need to take the next train, 2 hours later. I believed her, so I bought that ticket. Well, of course we could have made that connection and watched the train go while we waited for 2 hours at the train station.

Finally enjoying the train ride!

We finally made it to Levanto and checked into our hotel, the Hotel Oasi. It was a charming little house with 14 rooms, clean and bright yellow. We decided around 6:30 to take the quick train to the next village in Cinque Terre. We also wanted to purchase our return tickets at 8:30pm since we knew the strike began at 9:00pm. The ticket agent said that it may or may not be running at 8:30. Not wanting to be stuck without transportation back (and a 2 hour hike back), we decided to spend the evening in Levanto and hit the villages hard in the morning. We had a lovely evening walking around the charming town, looking at the coast and having amazing pesto lasagne. (Part of my "preparations" for this trip was to know what food each area is known for and then try it.) We had to try fococcia, pesto and nonna's cake here, as that is what they are known for.

The beautiful seaside town of Levanto

Gelato at sunset.

The next morning I woke up early and ran to the bakery down the street to get fresh fococcia - delicious! We packed up our suitcases quickly and had a great breakfast on the patio (he made eggs and bacon for us!). We jumped on the boat which took us to Riomaggiore (the farthest village) so we could do our little hike to Manarola and then take the boat back to catch our train, if it was running. The boat ride was beautiful! When we got to Riomagigore, we discovered that the boat did not return to Levanto until evening, which was too late as we needed to be in Rome to check into our hotel. So we decided to check the trains back. Again, nobody at the ticket office knew if each scheduled train would actually be coming or not. Their advise was to just keep checking as each train was scheduled to leave. It didn't take long to realize NO trains were coming in or out. So we decided to just keep heading closer to Monterosso, the village nearest Levanto and figure out a way back from there.

Monteresso al Mare

Vernazza

Corniglia

Manarola

Riomaggiore

The walk between Riomaggiore and Manarola was beautiful. It is incredible how those isolated villages are just set on the side of these cliffs. The weather was gorgeous. We took the boat back to Monteresso and on the boat called our hotel and told him of our situation. He arranged for a taxi to pick us up at Monterosso with all of our suitcases and then take us to La Spezia, where we could catch a working train to Rome.

It all worked out fine until we got to La Spezia.

Again, we missed our 2:00 train and many other trains were cancelled because of the strike. So we waited until the 4:00 train when they assured us it would be going. We spent the 2 hours in McDonalds (Andrew had his breakdown there) until the train. The 4 hour train ride was very pleasant and all the kids enjoyed playing Plants vs. Zombies on the ipads. (Had no idea that would be their favorite game.)

We checked into our little apartment right next to the Campo Dei Fiori. We had a large room with a kitchen and then another, smaller room which you had to go out and around to get to. The rooms were separated by another room with a couple. We asked if we could switch rooms and they said we could not. It wasn't ideal to walk back and forth and have the girls and little farther away, but again, the theme here is flexibility. It worked out fine. We spent the evening walking around the streets of Rome and everyone was happy to eat pizza.