Europe 2013 Day 5: Rome - Pisa - Riomaggiore

DAY 5: 17 MAY 2013

The day started off with catching a train to Florence at 9.15am from Roma Tiburtina.

Blur me forgot to double check the departure station and so,

I booked Roma Tiburtina instead of Roma Termini.

Thankfully, it was just 4 stops away from Termini, which took approximately

ten more minutes to get there.

It was my first inter-city train ride, and so I was kind of excited and couldn't fall asleep.

Upon arriving in Florence, we went straight to the train conductor on our next train

and asked if the mobile ticket is acceptable for the train ride.

Sadly, he rejected us saying that he needs the printed tickets.

And so, after asking around, we finally found an internet cafe and printed out our tickets

and we caught the next train to Pisa Centrale.

Upon reaching Pisa Centrale, we went to deposit our luggage at the train station for

4 euros per piece.

It took us close to forty minutes to walk to the Leaning Tower of Pisa as

we made a huge detour and crossed the further bridge.

Leaning Tower of Pisa

Tourists posing by the railings

While we were there, we attempted several fun shots with the tower.

The angle, the direction and the stance were so difficult to alter in just a few seconds.

In the end, each fun shot took about a minute to get positioned right.

We basically spent an hour there taking photos of the tower.

If we had more time there, I wouldn't mind going up the tower for the experience.

As we had to catch our next train,

we headed back to collect our luggage and boarded the train to La Spezia Centrale.

Upon reaching the train station, we checked our departure platform and noted that it was platform 2.

As soon as we saw the train coming, we boarded the train.

Amanda mentioned beforehand that the train ride was only seven minutes long.

However the next time I checked my watch, fifteen minutes have passed,

and both of them fell asleep on the train.

Just then, Amanda woke up and asked an Italian passenger where this train was heading to,

and to our horror, it was going to Genoa and we were already far off the map we had.

To make matters worse, the train conductor decided to do his rounds right after we knew 

we were on the wrong train.

At that point in time, my heart was pounding really fast and I was close to fainting.

As we were approaching the stop in ten minutes, he did random checks instead of

a thorough one.

However, he stopped to check the group of four, including the Italian we asked ten minutes ago.

Standing right in front of me was the train conductor.

If he were to move a step forward, the three of us will have to say byebye

to a hundred euros and make a trip to the police station.

Thankfully, he skipped the three of us.

Oh my goodness, I was literally scared to death for that minute.

It was probably because Amanda prayed to Mother Mary just before

the conductor walked past us, and that we were able to escape from the check.

Nevertheless, thank you for not checking our ticket!!

However, our bad luck just kept coming.

Amanda said that we had to check in latest by 5pm at our hostel, however,

it was already close to 6pm already.

No place to stay in a small village in Cinque Terre...

I was all prepared to pay for an expensive night at a hotel after all the trauma I suffered.

And so, we arrived at Genoa, finally!

With the directions given by many kind Italians who heard about our story,

we made extra effort to confirm the train's destination.

The ride back to our initial destination was eighty minutes long.

Upon reaching the station, we hurried to the hostel, Cinque Terre Holidays, with our luggages

just five minutes before the office closes.

Maybe the owner saw our desperate faces that evening and so he decided to let us in.

From that day onwards, all our accomodation required us to climb many many stairs..

As the hostel did not have any free wifi,

we selected a dinner place which offers free wifi for an hour.

Making use of that hour, we planned our route for the next day and

took note of all the trains we have to catch throughout the whole day.

That sums up our crazy day in Italy!