Italy Day 3: Florence to Cinque Terre

18th feb:We didn't order breakfast for today, since we were leaving. We would be in a rush in the morning. The rest had bought some bready stuff yesterday and I had nuts and raisins :) In the morning, after being attacked by the PMS-ing lady of Danny's house, we left for Gardino di boboli! It had been raining all night and it was still drizzling. so, the sky was't too wonderful for photographs.

We made our way straight down, stopping rarely. It was a pretty quiet journey and we stopped at this market to look at souvenir-sh stuff they sold. When we finally reached Gardino Di boboli, I was pretty hungry and so, I went into this supermarket nearby to buy bread. The cashier came out to help me choose the vegetarian stuff! so nice of him! I finally bought a 1 euro baguetty bread and joined up with the rest. The bread was enormous, about the length of my hand and 2 times ticker than it! and worst of all, its texture was like the complimentary bread we had at our first lunch in Pisa:( It was super hard and chewy. Anyway, for the gardens, we had to pay about 7 euros for the entrance. Some of us were reluctant cos the weather wasn't good for pics and what if the rain becomes heavier? Anyway, as there were no other interesting places to see, we just bought the tic and went in. The guy at the entrance looked at me to check my tic, and looked again at the bread, wishing me ' Bon appetito!' HAHAH!! It happened with the guy at the security check counter too!

This was the view of the entrance, after getting in climbing some stairs and turing to face it:

And the place was huge! Kai Hee was keeping count of how much the place was worth and I think it ald rose up to ~ 2 euros here :D Here's a panaromic view at the entrance:

And it reminded me of that place in sentosa with a row of garden and fountains near the merlion. But this was bigger and more grand.

And there was a lake along the way to the top. And we saw lots of flowers on this field near the lake!

And the view from the top was fabulous! We took a few jump-shots and pics there and prepared to go down.

And the adventurous me took a nice shot there:

After that, we went on to explore the garden more on our way down and found this tall fort:

And we got out of the gardino, looking for some place we couldn't find. Johnny, Saba and Kai hee waited for us near the lake.

And since we wanted to have lunch before our train at abt 3, we had to go off. Fortunately, it didn't rain! And I found oranges growing near the exit of the gardino.

And there was this room with deteriorating statues:

And we went back to the place that we went to the day before. It was open this time and the lady seemed to be excited to see us :) And we were seated outside. The wind was cold, cos most of us had dressed down, thinking the the weather would be warm. There was this tall radiator near me and I later changed place with kai hee since it was pretty hot! And I ordered pasta! Surprisingly, I think this was my first pasta ( by itself) in Italy!

And we were to rush back for our train by the shortest route! I looked at the map and showed the way and I was surprised that the rest trusted me so much that they just followed without referring to GPS! We got there and had some prob with the train delays and connecting trains. But after running about here and there and enquiring the officer who seemed helpful at first, we managed to get into a train :D

We reached Cinque terre in 3 hours! And the place was just fabulous! Best place on earth! We got there just after sunset and so, the pics aren't good. But here:

That was taken from the train!! It soon pulled into the station and we got off. The station was built on the edge of a cliff! How cool is that! As I looked around I realised something else.

guess what! It's not just the station that was built on the cliff! It was THE ENTIRE CITY!! And after some time, I realised that there were 5 cities like that, along a 5km stretch of cliffs :D The roads just zig-zagged their way up! And just like a normal city, it had street names, addresses and all that! We started climbing the roads. It got darker but we could hear the wave of the ocean deep down below as we walked on. After referring to the GPS, we got to the right street after about half an hour of walking. And I walked down to the no 94 that we were supposed to get to. Although the place was closed, we saw an envelope with MY NAME ON IT!!

hahah, I TOTALLY didn't expect my name to be hanging in a building on the side of a cliff at the altantic ocean! And upon opening it, we saw the KEY inside! wow! They totally trust the strangers in this place! And there was also a note saying how to get to our room from there!

and it said:

your place is in Via Gramsci 82E, walk downhill and take the stairs up in front of the train tunnel and walk straight the narrow street, at the end you see a table with chair, climb up those few steps and go through a grey door, the switch of the light is at your right and white door as weel, this is your place, if your have any problems please call: ...

yup!! So, we started our amazing race upto our place! Here was the downhill and the train tunnel part:

and the stairs part:

And the last part with the table, chair and the grey door too dark to be seen:

The room was fabulous too! 11 beds for the 8 of us :) We quickly put down our things and decided to save money by cooking dinner. We can't be going out cos we won't be able to see much in the dark. So, we found a few open supermarkets nearby and bought spagetti and stuff for pasta and cookies, cake and milk for breakfast the next day. Pau started with cooking the pasta:

Yeah.. there was too much :( We had to throw away 1 of the 3 packets we bought. After the meal, we played games with the oranges we bought. The videos need to be turned 90 degrees. So, I won't be uploading them. Anyway, I think they shold be private. So, I'll put them on fb instead of youtube. After the games, we cleaned up the dishes. Jiang Heng and I were the last ones to finish up the dishes at about 130am! And since we still had some energy after that, we went to EXPLORE the region! yes! hahah, we went to the train station first, using the train tunnel and found that it was a much shorter route :) And here's the adventurous me again, taking a pic on the railway track:

And after that, I helped JH take a photo too! And as i was pressing sth, I heard a track-rattling sound behind me. And After taking the photo, Jiang heng asked me to get out of the way. I turned behind and saw a train approaching with its 2 bright lights on, just ~ 150 meters from me! I immediately jumped onto the platform as the train's horn went off :D hahah, The train driver was alert! He could still horn at 2am! hahah! And then, we found this track along the edge of the cliff leading to the next station. We walked about 1.5 km into it and turned back. It was TOTAL darkness all the way:

We used my ipod touch as a torch! My new JustLight app was great! Although it was all dark, it was an eye-opening experience for us. All along the way, about 50 meters below the railing be our side was the violent sea with its waves crashing against the rocks.We came back as the others were getting into bed after their showers and went to bed too!