The Scroop's European Holiday: Monterosso

Today starts with us heading down to the harbour to see if the boats are running between the villages. We got moving a bit later than usual as we were still suffering from yesterdays walk. On the way down we stop in at a coffee/cake shop where Momma has just delivered some very tasty looking cannoli’s. Kris and I order 1 each and Mia says she’ll go for one as well. These things are still warm and I reckon Momma has only just ripped them out of the oven. We only get charged €1 each and we scoff these things down in seconds, they were delicious. We get to the harbour and buy some tickets for the boat, €40 for the four of us to get on and off the boat as much as we want, all day. We reckon that is awesome value and better still, the first boat for the day is 10 minutes away. We jump on and the boat does the route, Monterosso, Venazza, Manorola, Riomaggiore (it skips Coniglia which sits between Venazza and Manorola because that village is high up and I don’t think it has anywhere to dock) and we go all the way to Riomaggiore first. We jump off and as much as it is beautiful we find it a little boring so we don’t hang around long. We jump back on the boat and head back to Manorola which is much prettier and we get off and take a wander. We come across this little restaurant that just happens to have a table out the front with four seats free so we snap it up. We order lunch and the food is awesome. We indulge way too much before deciding to skip the boat and catch the train to Coniglia. We can’t come to the Cinque Terre and go home only seeing the Quattro Terre so to the train station we go. We get slugged €7.20 for a 5km train ride and when we get to the station we have to take about 400 steps to get to the Coniglia town centre. This proves tough but the reward at the top was some gelato......some very good gelato and some fantastic views! Coniglia is a very small village and there is pretty much bugger all there so we didn’t hang around too long but instead head back to the train station. At this point we don’t care if we catch a train backwards to Manorola or Riomaggiore to get the boat or if we go in the direction of Venazza and just do the boat ride for 1 stop back to Monterosso. We get to the train station and we hear this unmistakable voice. I turn around and it’s Simon Madden, ex Essendon superstar. Kris can’t help herself so she goes up and says “Excuse me, are you Simon Madden”? He says yeah and comes over and introduces himself to me and the kids and starts chatting. We chatted with him for quite a while and I tell ya, this bloke is one of the nicest blokes I’ve ever met. He talked to us like he’d known us for years asking us questions and telling us about his holiday and his kids. His mate he was travelling with grabbed our camera and took a photo of all of us which can be seen below. It’s hard to explain how nice this bloke was and when you travel for so long and experience a fair amount of rudeness and arrogance it’s great to speak to a person that treats you with respect and it’s even better when that blokes an Aussie and an Aussie superstar. After that high we had the polar opposite when we had to experience the Italian train service again. The Italian train service, or Trenitalia, is by far the worst train service I have ever had the displeasure of experiencing. This train service offers no information....NONE. When you get on an Italian train you have no idea where the train is going. No information at the platform, no information on the train, sweet FA. This is also a train that travels between five of the most famous seaside villages in the world and only sees fit to do it every 30 minutes and, only if it feels like it. We waited for a train that was meant to arrive at 20 past the hour and rocked up 20 minutes late. Not bad for a train that goes every half an hour. Not to mention the trains are boxes of shit and they stink and they are filthy. Anyway, we had an expired ticket but we felt the €7.20 we paid earlier was more than enough to pay for travelling on this 3^rd world train service so we jumped on and rode for free. We previously travelled from Milan to Monterosso and no one checked if we had a ticket so we thought travelling the two stops to Monterosso (we couldn’t stop at Venazza and do the boat because this shit train service took so long to get here we had missed the boat) certainly wouldn’t be a problem. When we get back we take the kids down the beach for a swim in the Mediterranean Sea. They don’t have towels so the walk back to the apartment was very cold. We shower up and headed back out to the foreshore area and sat in one of the sidewalk restaurants and had a drink overlooking the ocean. After a few drinks we moved to the restaurant next door still sitting outside overlooking the ocean. We had a great dinner a few more drinks before taking the lovely walk back to the apartment.