This week we wrap up our time in San Sebastian, do a whirlwind tour of Barcelona, spend some time in the French Riviera, and hike from one end of Cinque Terre to the other.
Europe 2007: Sep 09 - Sep 15
Sun. 09-09-07 -- San Sebastian, Spain and night train to Barcelona, Spain
Originally published on: 10-07-07
First off, I'm not actually writing this on the train, but writing it the next night in Barcelona. It was lights out in our sleeper car almost as soon as we boarded, so I had no time to write. Anyways, to keep up continuity, the rest of this entry will read like I wrote it on Sunday night...
Last night we slept in a hell hole! Well, it wasn't THAT bad, the old lady seemed a little off... The bad part was that our sheets smelled like wood varnish or something. I ended up using a shirt as a pillowcase for half the night but the smell got to me and I couldn't sleep past 5am. We were sleeping in single beds and somehow Kara's bed didn't stink so I crawled in with her and we slept cramped into a single until about 10am.
We got up and had breakfast at a cafe while Jessie found a different place to stay for tonight. The found a room at the pension they stayed at the night before, so we walked over there and left all of our bags.
Today is some kind of Basque pride day, so the steets are pretty crowded. We hopped a bus to Hondarribia, a small fishing village very near the French border. Once we got there, we realized that there wasn't really much to see. We walked a big circle through the town (along the water, on the main road, on a hill overlooking the city) then hopped the express bus back to San Sebastian. When we got back, Jeff & Jessie had to go to the train station to look into tickets, so we planned to meet up in a few hours.
Kara & I went down to the dock and bought tickets for a boat ride to Isla de Santa Clara, the small island in the mouth of the bay. The boat ride was only like 5 minutes, then we walked up the island/hill and found a nice spot on the grass with some shade. We lounged there for about an hour and a half, just relaxing, reading, and soaking in the sun. At one point I laughed to myself and said to Kara, "Do you realize what we're doing? We're relaxing and reading on a little island in a beautiful harbor on the Spanish coast!"
With 30 minutes left to meet Jeff & Jessie, we went back to the boat launch and caught the boat back. When we met back up, we had a few hours to kill before Kara & I had to go to the train station, so we sat down at an outside cafe and hung out there for an hour or two. Kara ordered onion rings, but the rest of us just hung out and drank half-full glasses of beer.
Around 8pm, we walked back to their hostel. We picked up our bags, said goodbye and left in search for an internet cafe. We checked our email and sent a bunch of emails to hotels/hostels in Nice to see if we could find a room. Then we lugged our bags to the train station and waited for our train. We were using our Eurail pass for this ticket, so I wrote today's date on the pass. Only after I did it did I realize that I needed to write tomorrow's date on the pass! You aren't allowed to correct the date because they won't be able to tell if you were scamming, so we had to just write it off as an expensive mistake (at least a $120 value) and just use the next box for tomorrow's date. I was pretty upset with myself, but there was nothing to be done about it but be more careful next time.
Our train pulled up shortly before 11pm and we got on. The sleeping compartment was 6 beds, 3 bunks on each wall and barely any other room. You basically had to get right into bed because otherwise there is not room in the compartment for 6 people! Once everyone was situated, the ticket collector came by, took our tickets and shut our door and turned out the lights. Ready or not, it's time for bed!
Mon. 09-10-07 -- Barcelona, Spain
Originally published on: 10-08-07
I didn't sleep too badly on the train thanks to our trusty earplugs! I woke up a lot and I wasn't 100% comfortable, but I definitely got a good amount of sleep. At around 8:15am, the ticket man came by knocking on our door. He handed back our railpass and said we'd be there by 9am. We laid in bed for a while longer and I peeked out the window at the foot of my bed. Neat, I slept and now we're in Barcelona! When the train finally arrived, we got off and ate McMuffins at the McDonald's in the train station. We were still pretty groggy from our semi-rough night's sleep, but we figured out the metro (easy) and rode it to Las Ramblas.
Last Ramblas is a big street with a very wide walkway in the middle between the lanes of traffic. We found many cafes and stands and street performers as we tried to locate our hotel. It turned out that the maps of Barcelona that I had didn't have labels for the small streets in the Barri Gotic where our hostel is located. So we wandered aimlessly back and forth on Las Ramblas for some time with our big packs on. We were tired and frustrated, and we finally turned down a road that was supposed to have an information office on it. We couldn't find the office, but I looked down a side street and saw a big question mark sign. I had a question, so we turned and walked toward it. The sign ended up being for a restaurant or something, but by an amazing stroke of luck, the next cross street down this side street was where our hostel is located! We found it by sheer dumb luck and a "sign from above!"
We checked into our hostel, but the room wasn't ready yet. We left our packs in the lounge and left to see the city (after a quick look through a guidebook). We walked east on the main road nearest our hostel and made our way over to a chocolate museum. We passed through the Plaza de Sant Jaume which didn't look all that special, but was the Roman Forum way back in the day. After a little wandering we found the chocolate museum and checked it out. It was mostly cheesy (they had buildings and scenes made of chocolate) but it also told the history of chocolate which was somewhat interesting. I learned that cacao beans come from a gourd-like fruit about the size of an oblong grapefruit. I also learned that the spicy chocolate drink that the Aztecs drank didn't have sugar in it (sugar & chocolate didn't meet until Europe). A third chocolate fun fact I learned was that the first European chocolate came through the Barcelona port. And finally I learned that Africa's Ivory Coast is where the majority of cacao beans come from today.
After the museum, we continued on the road and found Barcelona's Arc de Triomf. Barcelona's is smaller than Pars', but I think I liked Barcelona's better. It was build with red bricks and had some cool ornamental spires at the top. After taking a few pictures we headed south through a park that was right there. Once we hit the zoo, we headed west and took a peek in on the train station we're leaving from tomorrow at 8:45am. We continued west toward the harbor but took a quick detour to see the Santa Maria del Mar cathedral. Standard but impressive cathedral, towering ceilings, stained glass windows, decorative facade, etc. We eventually made it to a column monument to Columbus and walked toward the water. We bought tickets for a 30 minute boat ride through Barcelona's port and got right on. We were both amazed at how HUGE Barcelona's port is! There were many large cargo ships and cruise ships parked in the port and there was still plenty of space for other ships. I seriously can't even describe it, the concrete landing spots just went on forever off of the coast! Very impressive.
After the ride, we walked back to our hostel and got into our room. This room is actually like a hotel room, very nice with our own shower and all! We were ready for lunch, so we put the camera on the charger (it was complaining) and walked to a Rick Steves' recommended restaurant. We got a nice outdoor table in a courtyard and ordered el menu del dia which was a 3 course meal (and glass of wine) for 9.20 euro! We had a few selections to choose from for each course and this is what we got: I got tomato basil soup (it was so sweet and delicious), baked fish with potatoes, onions & peppers (fish tasted similar to salmon but was white, the onions were just very lightly sauteed and were scruptious) and pineapple brulee for desert (2 slices of fresh pineapple with a scorched sugar crust ala creme brulee, YUM!), and a glass of red wine. Kara got macaroni noodles with cheese, grilled steak in balsamic oil, the pineapple brulee and a glass of white wine. It was all really good, a very nice treat from our mostly store bought meals. Lunch proceeded at a very relaxed pace which I really enjoyed. There was time between our courses, and we soaked in the cafe experience and talked and relaxed.
After lunch we went back to the hostel to pick up our camera. We got in our room and laid down for a little while to look at the guidebook. We were both pretty sleepy (especially with full bellies) so we decided to take a 1.5 hour nap before venturing back out... That 1.5 hours went by SO FAST! But we got up and walked up Las Ramblas to the Plaza de Catalunya. We continued up the steet into L'Eixample past the Manzana de la Discordia (a block of unique building designed by competing architects). We rode the metro out to La Sagrada Familia, but it was closing soon so we could only see the outside. The cathedral was very unique and it was interesting to see that it is still under very heavy construction (the guidebook says it won't be finished for 50 more years!) After walking around the cathedral, we rode the metro out to the Montjuic funicular.
We took the funicular up the hill and then took a gondola ride up to the castle. It was 8:30pm by this time so it was dusk and the city lights sparkled in the distance as we rode up. Once at the top, we had 30 minutes before the last gondola ride back, so we walked in and around the castle for a bit taking in the beautiful city skyline at night. With 10 minutes to spare, we caught the gondola back and rode the metro back to Las Ramblas. We walked back to our hostel and went to our room for the night. Our room has a private shower so we both enjoyed that (showers have become a luxury to savor) and then some reading and writing. Tomorrow we catch the train to Nice, so it was a short but very nice time in Barcelona!
Tue. 09-11-07 -- Train to Nice, France
This morning we got up at 7:15am to pack up and walk to the train station. We bought breakfast from a vending machine and boarded the train. The train left at 8:45am and the ride was about 4.5 hours long. We got a few glimpses of the Mediterranean Sea as we railed to Montpellier. We arrived in Montpellier at about 13:30 and our next train didn't leave until 15:11, so we had some time to kill.
We left the station in search for lunch, and agreed on a kebab place. The food was pretty good! Then we walked a few door down to the internet cafe, but it was closed for renovations. The guy at the cafe told us where there was another one down the road, so we walked there. We got a computer for a half hour, so we could see if we had a confirmation email from the hotel in Nice. Unfortunately we didn't, so we checked our other email and played with a map of our trip until our time ran out.
We walked back to the train station and looked at the big board to find our track. The sign said our train would probably be 20 minutes late, so we sat down and read until it showed up. When the train pulled up, we got on and took our plush first class seats. A four hour train ride, with more glimpses of the Mediterranean. We read, Kara played Tetris & Dr. Mario, and we listened to a kickass playlist I whipped up on the ol' iPod... I should become a professional DJ! :p I looked up in the tour books where our hotel was located and since we were arriving late-ish, we decided to take a cab.
When the train arrived in Nice, I showed the address to the cabbie, and he said it was only a 5 minute walk. So we set off down the street for what was more like a 10-15 minute walk. When we found the hotel I realized that we went to the wrong one. We had booked at Hotel Petite Louvre, but I had lead us to Hotel Petite Trianon! All that walking for nothing! We hit an internet cafe to confirm that it was indeed the Louvre and that we had received a room confirmation. It was and we had, so we marched back toward the train station where our actual hotel was located.
Check-in was quick, we rode the lift to the 3rd floor, and got into our room. We were hungry for dinner, so we left our room and walked around until we found a place that looked good. I got a pizza that had tomato sauce, cheese, kalamata olives, and anchovies on it! It was pretty tasty, but as usual those anchovies are too salty! With our bellies full, we walked back to our hotel room.
Since we are staying in Nice for 2-3 nights, we decided to do ALL of our laundry. There are 2 sinks in our room (there is a bathroom and a kitchenette) so we each grabbed a sink and washed our own clothes. With our laundry done, we turned on our AC and climbed into bed. So, nothing very exciting today, but it was nice to take it easy & get our chores done.
Wed. 09-12-07 -- Nice, France
This morning we woke up at 9am and didn't get out the door until 10! We stopped by the grocery store (Monoprix) and got food for breakfast and lunch. We walked down the street until we hit the beach, then we sat on a bench and ate our breakfast.
While we ate, an elderly woman sat next to us and said "Bon Appetite." We both chuckled and kept eating. We kind of talked to her about the pigeons that were circling and laughed about it. Only, she spoke in French and we spoke in English! But we each knew what each other was saying, standard small talk about greedy pigeons.
After breakfast, we walked along the beach toward the harbor. The beach alternates between private and public sections. On the private beaches, you have to pay 12 euro for a spot with a chair! However, a chair would actually be nice on these beaches because there is no sand. The beaches are all smooth flat-ish stones about the size of a squashed apple and smaller. It looked pretty, but it doesn't compare to the comfort of sand (more on that later). The sea was SO BLUE! and the water right next to the land was the lightest baby blue because of those light rocks beneath the waves. We had quite a beautiful view as we walked to the harbor.
When we got there, we noticed that the boat tour we were interested in doing leaves at 3pm. As it was only 11:30am, we put our name down and they told us to come back at 2:30pm. While we were at the dock, a SCUBA shack caught our eye, so we decided to check it out... They offered a guided boat dive including all of the equipment for 39 euro. That seemed like a pretty reasonable price, so we went in and talked to them. They had availabilities tomorrow for 9am, so we paid up and got a voucher for tomorrow.
With hours to kill, we walked back toward old town and climbed up Castle Hill, a big stone hill with old fortifications on it. There was quite a bit to see there, plenty of awesome views, some ruins, an old man-made waterfall, etc. We found a nice bench up there and ate our store bought lunch.
We wandered down from the hill on a back way and found ourselves right in old town. We walked around the narrow streets for a while and came across a nice plaza. We bought a crepe filled with chocolate and banana (what is up with us and bananas this trip?!?) and sat down and ate it. We explored old town a while longer but still had an hour to kill so we went to the beach and lay down for a while. We only had our light jackets to lie down on, so we couldn't get too comfortable on the rocks. But we managed, so we soaked up some rays and read our books until it was time to head back to the harbor...
Back at the harbor, we bought our tickets and eventually boarded the boat. The cruise was nice, it was about 1 hour long, and it cruised up and down the coast near Nice. They pointed out the houses of the rich and famous, we saw Elton John's, Sean Connery's, Bill Gates', etc.
After the boat ride, we walked to a bike shop where we rented bikes for an hour. We rode along the coast on the nice wide promenade for about a half hour, then we rode back to get our bikes turned in on time. It was great zipping down the coast on the bikes because we saw a lot of beautiful coastline that we would otherwise have not seen if we were just on foot.
After the bike ride we went to the beach again and hung out there for a while just relaxing. We started getting hungry, so we walked back to our hotel, but stopped by the grocery store. We bought tomato and basil ravioli and a baguette and then cooked it in our hotel kitchenette. It was actually kind of a treat to have a warm meal that we prepared! After dinner, we hit up an internet café for an hour or so and then we went back to our hotel to get a good night's sleep for our dive the next morning.
Thurs. 09-13-07 -- Nice, France and Monaco
Got up in time to make the roughly 30 minute walk to the harbor to get there by 9am. We stopped by a farmers' market to buy some fruit for breakfast (you guessed it, bananas!) We checked in at the SCUBA shop and they gave us our gear. The wetsuits were 5 mil and had hoods, so this wasn't Maui temperatures we're dealing with! We got on the boat and cruised out quite a way on the Med. Sea.
Soon enough we were in the water and exploring a dive spot they called 'coral cave.' The water was nice and clear (and not too cold for me) and we saw lots of cool stuff. There was some sort of sea grass covering most of the ground where we descended. The fish were less colorful than Maui, but there were plenty to look at and a few really cool ones like these tiny baby fish that were electric blue.
We made our way to the coral cave and went in a bit under the overhang. The guide shone his light up at the ceiling and the whole thing was covered in this very red coral. We stayed under for 48 minutes with a max depth of 18 meters, and saw: a bright red sea star, lots of interesting plants, an urchin that we picked up and it suctioned to our hand, and a few large schools of fish.
When we got out, they served us this interesting anise flavored liquor mixed with water that is apparently very typical in this region. One of the French guys we were diving with talked to us the whole boat ride back. He was pretty cool, he learned English by living in New York for 3.5 years.
Once we were back, we went back to our hotel to take showers. Once we were cleaned up, we spent some time planning our next few days of travel, then walked to the train station to buy our tickets to Monterosso (the north most town of Cinque Terre aka the Italian Riviera). The tickets were only 52 euro so we decided not to use a travel day on our pass, and we just paid the cash for the tickets.
With tomorrow's travel plans squared away, we walked toward the bus station to hop a bus to Monaco! We hadn't had lunch yet and we were running a bit late, so we stopped by McDonald's for a quick lunch. The bus ride to Monaco only cost 1.30 euro per person, and was a nice drive in the coastal cliffs along the Med. Sea. It took maybe 30 minutes to get there, and we exited the bus onto the soil of the 4th European country we've visited!
We hiked up this very long and wide walkway/stairway to the Prince's Palace. There were great views of the coastline from up there! We walked around a bit and went into the cathedral where we saw Princess Grace's (aka Grace Kelly's) tomb. We continued along the hillside and walked through a cool botanical garden before making our way down the hill. We needed to get change for our bus ride back, so Kara bought Toblerone and Coke and I bought a Cuban cigar. We rode the bus back to Nice, then hung out at the beach while I smoked my Cubano.
It was getting to be dinnertime, so we headed back and stopped at the store. This time we bought a can of ratatouille, penne pasta, pesto sauce, and a baguette. I cooked tonight, so I served dinner in courses! I heated up the ratatouille while the water warmed for the pasta. We enjoyed our Provencal first course while our Italian 2nd course cooked. Then the penne pesto was ready and it was quite good. I cooked WAY TOO MUCH pasta, so we bagged it in a ziplock and figured we could eat it cold on the train tomorrow for lunch! After dinner we cleaned up our mess of a room and then I walked down to the internet cafe to use the computer for an hour. Nice has been nice, pretty relaxing but with just enough to keep us a little busy. Next stop Cinque Terre and we're showing up without a room reservation! Eek!
Fri. 09-14-07 -- Nice, France and Monterosso, Italy
This morning we got up at 8:30am and packed up our stuff. We got to the train station at 9:45am with 20 minutes before our train left. I really love this whole train thing. There's no 2 hour check-in airplane BS, you just show up, get on your train and away you go! Our first train ride was 3+ hours long and got us to Genoa a little late at 13:29.
Our next train left at 13:49, so we frantically looked around for our connecting train before we realized it would show up on the platform right next to the one we arrived on! When the train arrived, we hopped on and discovered that our seats weren't next to each other. We found 2 open seats and sat next to each other to eat lunch (our left over pesto penne from the night before) then Kara went to her official seat as more people got on at the next stop. Apparently there was some sort of mix up because we both had window seats even though we were supposed to have an aisle and a window. A lady even came to tell Kara that she was in her seat, but they both had tickets for the same seat!
Even with all the confusion, we made it to Monterosso at around 3:30pm. We didn't have a hotel reserved, so we went to the tourist office and asked if they had room information. The girl at the desk asked how much we were looking to spend and actually called a place to see if they had room. She showed us where to go on the map, and as we walked toward it, we realized that this was way out in the middle of nowhere in new town. We didn't even walk all the way there before we turned around and decided to see if we could find a place on our own in the heart of old town.
We walked down the coast and through the tunnel to old town (schlepping our bags, of course) and then we tried to find pensions on the two maps we had. We mostly wandered around town until we recognized a "street" on the map and turned toward Casa Manuel B&B. I say "street" because what it really was, was a long and windy staircase that went on forever! We got to the top all exhausted and sweaty, but there was no one at the gate. We looked around a bit and eventually a young guy (Manuel?) showed up. He said he didn't have rooms, but he'd call a place and see if they had a room for us. They did, so he said an old woman would meet us at the bottom of the stairs. "She's pretty old, so she doesn't know much English" he said as we walked away.
We got to the bottom and stood around for a few minutes before Kara noticed a woman beckoning us to follow her. We followed her down the street and up another winding street/staircase until we got to a doorway. She opened the door and showed us a pretty nice apartment with a full bath and kitchen. "Cuanto costa?" I asked. She held up six fingers, so I said "sixty per night?" and she said "yes." Not bad, so we said "ok." She said "pay now or pass-a-port-ay" and since I didn't have exactly 120 euros, I handed over my passport. As she was leaving, I tried to ask her where she stayed so we could pay her. This concept was far beyond our language barrier, so we ineffectually tried to communicate for a while. Finally she got across that she does not live here, and this apartment isn't hers, but Stefania's. Stefania will come by tomorrow at 9am to get the money and give me back my passport. Ok, we had a plan!
Once we got settled, we decided to walk around our new home town for a bit. We walked down to the harbor and walked out to the end of the breakwater. From there we could see all of the other 4 towns of the Cinque Terre. After the harbor, we explored a bit and climbed up the stone hill to a convent and cemetery. We peaked into the chapel and then walked all through the cemetery. From up on the hill, we could see a long way down the coast, and could also look down on most of the town. As we were making our way back down to town, the church bells started ringing, so we stood over the town and listened to them ring for many minutes.
We came down from the hill a different way than we came up, and after a while we realized that we were coming down the street our apartment is on! We got back to the main road, Via Roma, and walked up it a ways and stumbled upon a grocery store so we went in and bought food for dinner. We took the food back to our apartment, then we walked back out to find a snack and get a drink. We found a café that was right on the water that gave snacks with drinks, so perfect! I got a big bottle of local beer and Kara got a chocolate gelato milkshake, and our snacks were kalamata-style olives and potato chips.
We walked home and made dinner (we watched Italian TV game shows while it cooked). Dinner was good, more penne pasta, this time with bolognaise sauce. It was dark outside by the time we finished dinner, so we walked back to the breakwater to look at the Cinque Terre cities sparkling in the night. We stayed down at the harbor for a while just talking and cuddling, then we walked back and went to bed.
Sat. 09-15-07 -- Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore, Italy
This morning we got up around 8:30 am to get ready for "the big hike!" The five towns of Cinque Terre are connected by a rough footpath that winds along the sea cliff edge. The hike is about 7 miles from Monterosso to Riomaggiore, so our plan was to spend all day hiking the trail, stopping at each town to look around, and finally take a boat back to our starting place. And that's exactly what we did!
The path between Monterosso and Vernazza was very rough! There were tons of steep stone steps that seemed to go up forever! This first leg of the trip passed through terraced vineyards and we got great views of the coastline. It took us about 1.5 hours to arrive in Vernazza.
Vernazza was more bowl shaped than Monterosso (which sprawled along the coast). We got a piece of very cheesy focaccia bread and shared it while sitting down at the harbor. Then we climbed a bunch of stairs to the old castle tower and walked around while looking down at the city. There was a spire that had a tight spiral staircase that we climbed to the top. We wandered around the city a little more, then we got back on the trail for our next 1.5 hour hike to Corniglia.
The tour book said that this leg was easier than the last, but that was wrong. There were just as many (or more) stone steps on this section as there were on the last. We were pretty worn out and running out of water by the time we hit Corniglia.
Corniglia is a hill town that doesn't really have shoreline access. The buildings are all smooshed together on this little hill and the streets are narrow and tight. We found a free water spigot and filled our water bottle back up. To leave Corniglia we had to climb down the hill to the train station on a staircase that went on forever. As we were going down, we passed exhausted people coming up from the station with all of their luggage. That didn't look fun...
The third leg of our trip was much easier than the fist two. It was only 45 minutes long, pretty flat and even partially paved! Because of this, there were way more people on this path. Instead of being high in the hills, this one hugged the coast, so there were lots of pretty views.
We arrived in Manarola ready for lunch! We found a focaccia/pizza place and ordered a couple of slices. Mine was really good, it had black olives, mushrooms, prosciutto, and herbs on a focaccia crust. After lunch, we walked around Manarola a bit and we really liked this town. It had close rock hill walls, so the town was built up along the walls, a town in a stone bowl. The open side of the bowl spilled the town down into the tiny harbor.
We left Manarola and walked the last 20 minutes along the very easy Via dell'Amore. We arrived in the last town, Riomaggiore, and took the elevator to the top of town. We wandered around a bit and then headed down the main drag toward the water. We found a gelato place right next to a bar, so Kara got gelato and I got a beer and we sat outside and enjoyed our reward.
We were both pretty wiped out from the hike, so we walked down to the harbor and bought tickets for the boat. We had about 20 minutes to wait, so we went to the beach, took our shoes off and stood in the surf. The cool water felt so good on our tired feet! The boat ride back was nice, we got one last view of each town, as well as the rough hike we did.
The boat dropped us off in Monterosso and we walked back to our apartment. We dropped off the backpack, then went to find some dinner. There was a place nearby (Bar Davi) that gave appetizers if you ordered a drink, so we got drinks and ate the food. We were still hungry, so we ordered some bruschetta with tomatoes & anchovies on it! Anchovies are caught in this region and are very popular here, so I figured we ought to try them! Kara ate it without the fish, so there was double fish on my pieces. It was very fishy and salty, but it was pretty good. After dinner, we walked to the train station and bought tickets for tomorrow morning to Pisa. Then we walked back to our place, took showers, and climbed into bed to rest our tired and achy muscles.
