Is this heaven? No, it's gelato. (April 10th)
Scott and I awoke after our night of salsa dancing refreshed and ready to begin our journey to Chinque Terre, located in northern Italy near Genova. We had gotten some good info (or at least we THOUGHT it was good) the day before from Celine, the gal who gave us a ride to our hostel when we arrived in Annecy, so we were all set up for the trains that we had to catch that day. She told us that because we had Eurail passes; we could simply hop on and off any train in Europe without a reservation. No problems, right?
Trouble point #1: Annecy, France. 9:35 am.
Asking a nearby train assistant guy to make sure we were about to get on the right train, he informed us that we needed a reservation for this train. How did this happen?? Celine told us we didn’t need one! The man was gracious enough to let us on the train, probably because it we were headed a mere two towns away to Chambery.
Trouble point #2: Chambery, France. 10:26 am.
We pulled into Chambery and immediately headed to the information desk. We found out that we would need reservations for the other two trains we were to take that day. The man who helped us was very nice and we bought the reservations for our next trains and hopped on our train heading to Milan.
Trouble point #3: Unknown location (somewhere between Chambery, France and Milan, Italy). 12:42 pm.
Well, we knew we were on the right train, but we had no idea where we were supposed to sit because it turns out we didn’t receive a reservation for this train…AWESOME! The luggage compartment provided us seats for about 45 minutes until we boldly chose some open seats in the first class car. Everything was going well until the ticket checker came by. Hoping he wasn’t going to Indiana Jones us off the train (“No ticket”), we wondered if we shouldn’t go hide in the bathroom and hope we could sneak by him. We waited it out and about a 20 minute argument ensued between Scott and I and the ticket checker. His point: Give me 14 euros each or else I’ll fine you and kick you off at the next stop. Our point: Why the hell did we pay so much for these damn Eurail passes if we keep having to pay more money? You can imagine who won out on that one (HINT: it wasn’t us).
FINALLY we arrived in Chinque Terre a little angrier and with less money, but we looked up and we saw some of the most gorgeous terrain we’ve ever seen.
Chinque Terre was gorgeous.
Our train dropped us off in Monterosso, the biggest of the five towns (Chinque Terre actually means “five towns” in Italian). Exchanging the familiar “we have no idea what we’re doing” glances at each other, we ended up finding the Hotel Souvenir, which would be our accommodations for the next two nights.
After getting some much needed dinner, we randomly met two girls from Kansas. They were actually staying at the same hotel as we were, but what was more important was what they possessed in each of their hands.
Gelato.
As many of you already know (Jessie), Gelato is Italian ice cream…but more importantly it’s about the best thing you will ever eat in your entire life! The girls showed us where the Gelatteria was located and Scott and I took our first bites of many that we would taste on this trip. So delicious!!!
After our Gelato, the four of us headed to down to Mediterranean and dipped our feet in its cold waters. Or at least it began at our feet, but the Mediterranean was restless and quickly soaked all of us up to our waists. Not caring about dry pants anymore, we ended up Dancin’ in the Mediterranean (not to be confused with Peein’ in the Streets of Dublin). Ok, not ACTUALLY dancing, but you get the picture.
Another day salvaged from travel annoyances.
Gelato consumed (in scoops):
Jordan - 3
Scott - 2
Trouble point #1: Annecy, France. 9:35 am.
Asking a nearby train assistant guy to make sure we were about to get on the right train, he informed us that we needed a reservation for this train. How did this happen?? Celine told us we didn’t need one! The man was gracious enough to let us on the train, probably because it we were headed a mere two towns away to Chambery.
Trouble point #2: Chambery, France. 10:26 am.
We pulled into Chambery and immediately headed to the information desk. We found out that we would need reservations for the other two trains we were to take that day. The man who helped us was very nice and we bought the reservations for our next trains and hopped on our train heading to Milan.
Trouble point #3: Unknown location (somewhere between Chambery, France and Milan, Italy). 12:42 pm.
Well, we knew we were on the right train, but we had no idea where we were supposed to sit because it turns out we didn’t receive a reservation for this train…AWESOME! The luggage compartment provided us seats for about 45 minutes until we boldly chose some open seats in the first class car. Everything was going well until the ticket checker came by. Hoping he wasn’t going to Indiana Jones us off the train (“No ticket”), we wondered if we shouldn’t go hide in the bathroom and hope we could sneak by him. We waited it out and about a 20 minute argument ensued between Scott and I and the ticket checker. His point: Give me 14 euros each or else I’ll fine you and kick you off at the next stop. Our point: Why the hell did we pay so much for these damn Eurail passes if we keep having to pay more money? You can imagine who won out on that one (HINT: it wasn’t us).
FINALLY we arrived in Chinque Terre a little angrier and with less money, but we looked up and we saw some of the most gorgeous terrain we’ve ever seen.
Chinque Terre was gorgeous.
Our train dropped us off in Monterosso, the biggest of the five towns (Chinque Terre actually means “five towns” in Italian). Exchanging the familiar “we have no idea what we’re doing” glances at each other, we ended up finding the Hotel Souvenir, which would be our accommodations for the next two nights.
After getting some much needed dinner, we randomly met two girls from Kansas. They were actually staying at the same hotel as we were, but what was more important was what they possessed in each of their hands.
Gelato.
As many of you already know (Jessie), Gelato is Italian ice cream…but more importantly it’s about the best thing you will ever eat in your entire life! The girls showed us where the Gelatteria was located and Scott and I took our first bites of many that we would taste on this trip. So delicious!!!
After our Gelato, the four of us headed to down to Mediterranean and dipped our feet in its cold waters. Or at least it began at our feet, but the Mediterranean was restless and quickly soaked all of us up to our waists. Not caring about dry pants anymore, we ended up Dancin’ in the Mediterranean (not to be confused with Peein’ in the Streets of Dublin). Ok, not ACTUALLY dancing, but you get the picture.
Another day salvaged from travel annoyances.
Gelato consumed (in scoops):
Jordan - 3
Scott - 2
posted by jordan @ 3:26 PM
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