No coasting on the coasts

After several days of enjoying the relaxing pace of my Florence schedule, I thought it would be only fitting to try to squeeze several cities and activities into as small a window as possible. I got up early Friday morning to catch an 8:30 train out of Florence. I was going to spend the day in Cinque Terre, but figured I could stop in Pisa on the way. An hour train ride to Pisa, 15 minute walk through the city, 30 minutes taking pictures of some tower that just doesn’t seem to be standing up straight, then back to the train station to continue on.
By noon I was arriving in the Cinque Terre region. It is a stretch of 5 little fishing villages that cling to the cliffs on the northwest coast of Italy (just south of Genova). All I have to say is…this is one of the ‘must visit’ places if you are ever in Italy or eastern France. The pictures just don’t capture its wonder. I hiked the several kilometer trail that connects all five towns. However, I read on wikitravel that it was a pretty easy hiking trail. They lied. I consider myself in pretty good shape (let’s hope so if I am going to make it up Kilimanjaro), and there were a few long ascents that made my legs burn and my heart race. But it was well worth it. The views are breath-taking, even before the strenuous climb, and the towns are uniquely amazing. There are little shops, restaurants, B&Bs, swimming and sunbathing spots, and plenty of gelaterias to make you smile all day long. And they call the nature trail the Romance Walk (but I would only say that between the first 3 towns). Overall, it is definitely someplace I will go back to and enjoy for multiple days with someone special (hopefully :-D ). For this, I deem Cinque Terre the ‘Top Naturally Beautiful Community’ (as Edinburgh is the ‘Top Architecturally Beautiful City’ and the Cliffs of Moher is the ‘Top Natural Marvel’, but there isn’t much else there to do).
And on a side note, I finally found a spot to get in my first DWS (Deep Water Solo) climb. It was more like glorified bouldering, as it was only 10-12 meters high, but I enjoyed it all the same. The danger of falling wasn’t too great though, since I jumped off into the ocean after I topped out. Although the biggest challenge was timing the difficult riding of the waves in to actually get on the wall. . That was an adventure in-and-of-itself. The high waves liked to throw you against the rock, then wash you back off when you try to grab on. And bare-foot climbing semi-jagged rock added to the fun; as well making the last hour of the hike more interesting with a few small cuts on the bottom of my feet.

But I digress back to the topic of the jam packed schedule. After 7 hours of hiking, climbing and swimming, I was back on a train. This time to take an over night train across to the other coast of Italy, to Venice. However, it turned into an all night adventure. After booking the train, I realized it was not one long overnight train where I could sleep the whole way. No, it was three different trains that gave me just a few small 1-2 hours blocks to sleep. To make things even more interesting, I slept through one of my stops (since signs and communication on the trains in Italy is non-exsistent). So it was an entire night of travel nightmares and very little sleep. But I arrived in Venice on Saturday morning just the same, and only an hour later than planned. I only spent half a day in Venice, as several travelers that just came from there said would be sufficient.
Venice is one of those places that I originally had high hopes for due to the Hollywood portrayal, but then dropped my expectations drastically after other feedback and my experience in some other Italian cities. But I ended up enjoying my time there. The canal streets and thin walking streets are quite captivating. Although the only negative I have to say is that the local so-called information service providers are the most useless and unaccommodating as any place I have been so far. In two train stations, three bus information booths, one water taxi stand, and one actual bus attendant everyone seemed bothered to answer your questions and most of them had no idea or gave incorrect information. But oh well.
So to end my 48-hour city hop, I jumped on a bus headed toward the small city of Pula, Croatia. It was scheduled to get in at 7 pm on Saturday night. As fate has been messing with my schedule the entire trip, we have been sitting in a traffic jam just outside of Venice for the last 4 hours. Who knows where I will actually end up, or when. But the positive side is, it has given me a large block of time to catch up on transferring pictures to my computer and writing this blog. Now I just have to get online sometime to load it all to the web.