The Cinque Terre Adventure Part (1) Getting There & The Train Incident

For the first time in my entire life, I didn’t eat turkey on Thanksgiving this year. Instead, while my family was gathered around a picnic table thousands of miles away, I sat on the tile floor of the Madrid airport with two good friends, eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and waiting for it to be 5am so we could finally check in for our flight to Italy.

Getting There

Although the excitement for our adventure helped distract us somewhat from our homesickness, all three of us (Cecily from Colorado, Reid from Arkensas, and me) couldn’t completely forget that it was still Thanksgiving. Knowing that on the other side of the world there was an empty space for us at the family dinner table, we were all very nostalgic. Not just for the food - eating turkey instead of pig leg, and pumpkin pie instead of paella - what we all missed most was our family. We talked about them all night; what they were probably doing at that very moment, wondering what kind of stuffing Dad had made this year, and recounting all the funny holiday traditions we used to have when we were kids. The more we talked about it, the more we realized how scarily adult it was for us to be away from home for such a major holiday. And how ironic, that of all places in the world to be, the three of us were spending our 21st Thanksgiving in a Spanish airport terminal on our way to Milan.

Indeed, we do have a lot to be thankful for.

The hours ticked by, and finally it was time for the check-in, followed by the usual mad dash to the departure gate. (Seats are first come first serve, and people get aggressive over claiming their window seat.) We boarded our plane, and the next eight hours became a traveling blur – drifting in and out of sleep, landing in Milan. Taking a shuttle from the airplane to the terminal. (It was about 100 feet away, and still they had a shuttle. Crazy Italians.) A bus from the terminal to Grand Central Station. A train from Milan to Monterroso. And finally, by 4pm, we had reached the first of our five cities in the beautiful region of Cinque Terre, Italia.

The Train… Incident.

Our original plan entailed arriving in Monterroso around 4pm (check) then hiking to Vernazza, the second costal city where we had booked our hostel for the first night. We’d read that this hike was the hardest of the four, but figured that we could do it in under two hours, and get to our hostel by about 6pm. We were discussing this plan as we stepped off the train – just as I realized that my camera wasn’t in my purse. I figured that I must have dropped it while walking from my seat, so I handed my purse and backpack to Cecily and Reid to double check them, and I ran back into the train. Immediately I saw it – my camera had dropped about 20 feet away from the exit, so I grabbed it and sprinted back toward the closing doors… right as the train began to roll away. I knocked on the glass, and watched as Cecily and Reid disappeared from view, waving their arms and trying and stop the conductor. But there was no use. I was on my way to La Spezia, five cities south of Monterroso.



An hour later, after using broken Spanish-Italian to explain my situation to the conductor, (how do you say “I have no money, and no ticket, but I need to get back to Monterroso NOW!” in Italian?) I somehow managed to get a free ticket back, and reunited with Cecily and Reid who figured I’d make my way back eventually. Thanks again, guys.
But in the end, my little mishap worked quite well in our favor, because what we didn’t realize is that Italy is south of Spain – hence, the sun sets earlier. Our hike to Vernazza was quoted at 2 hours and we gave ourselves less than one before we’d have to do some extreme trekking in the dark. Not the smartest idea. Also, we were all running on a cumulative less than 2 hours of sleep, so we questioned whether or not we would’ve even made it, after realizing the next day how difficult the hike really was.