So in my initial travel plan (if you can call it that) I was going to grab up a super cheap last-minute flight from Madrid to Rome, then see do the cities in Rome as I moved northward. Well I was not so lucky with the cheap flights. Then I considered taking a ferry, but I'm not entirely sure how that works with the Eurail pass...I think you may just walk up to the dock and hope for the best. I didn't want to mess with that. So I decided I would just take trains all the way along the French Riveria so that my first stop in Italy would be Cinque Terre.
This turned out to be a time-consuming trip, so the first day I just rode trains as far east as I could go until I got to Montpellier, France, where no more trains were heading that direction for the night. Montpellier was a small quiet college town. I got directions to the hostel and ended up following some other young folks who looked like they might be heading the same way. They informed me that the hostel was full so I followed them to a local hotel. Even though I still had to go across the hall for the bathroom, I was pretty excited to have a room to myself for the night.
The train rides were beautiful on this part of the trip - routes followed the edge of the Mediterranean coast through the famous French Riviera cities. It was just too beautiful to resist, so I stopped over for a night in Nice, France. I spent the day relaxing on the pebble beach (which is way better than sand, in my opinion) and making difficult decisions like which gelato to choose from the 200 flavor selection.
Eventually, I made it to Cinque Terre, Italy. Cinque Terre is a string of 5 little villages nestled in the rugged coastline in northwest Italy (just north of Pisa). Towns are connected by hiking trails and trains, but there are no cars to speak of. I spent a full day hiking to each of the towns and set aside the next day as a recovery day, in which I was determined to do nothing but sit at the beach. The best meal I had in all of Italy was in the hostel in Manarola - gnocchi with pesto sauce. Incredible.
Looking down on the town on Vernazza
I found this incredible little path through the vineyards in Manarola, the town I called home.
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