Guys, I finally made it!!! After failing three times to go to Liguria’s jewel, I got to realize my dream to see the Cinque Terre. The first time, my friends bailed on me, the second time, a storm flooded the paths and the third time, well, Covid happened. So this time, I wasn’t sure of anything and I didn’t get my hopes up.
Some Obstacles On My Way To The Cinque Terre
I had decided to go to Italy at the end of April to avoid the crowds and have time to do some job interviews during the month. The easiest (but really long) option was to take trains, but I waited a bit too long, and the prices went up: a train that was 62 euros suddenly cost 200 euros! So, in order to get cheaper tickets, I decided to leave a few days later than originally planned. I also had to book two trips to reach Genoa instead of one. Let me explain: if I booked the trip to Genoa on the SNCF’s website, it stopped in Marseille, Nice and Ventimiglia, cost a lot of money and had limited possibilities, whereas if I booked a trip to Nice (via Marseille) and then a trip from Nice to Genoa (via Ventimiglia), it stopped in the same places, cost less and I could choose the departures I wanted. Don’t ask me why it’s that complicated, I don’t know. So always check if you can split your trip in two, sometimes, it’s easier to book and it costs less.
The other obstacle was the weather. When I checked three weeks before, they announced storms on week of Aril 25th. So I thought that, maybe, I should leave a week earlier. But a departure on the week of April 18th was quite complicated because there were the presidential elections and I wanted to vote. So I waited and, actually, the storms happened on that week instead of on the week of the 25th. When I booked the final trains, I saw that there would be some rain but not all days, so I thought that I should go anyway and enjoy the place, even if it was under the rain.
A Long Day In The Train
On April 25th, I woke up at 5 am, even though I can’t really say that I slept that night. My first train was leaving Toulouse at 6.43 am to go to Marseille. For some reason, the SNCF decided to cancel the car n.10 and so, me and all the people who booked a ticket in this car, we had to find a free seat in cars 8 and 9. It was a bit of a mess because some people did book seats in cars 9 and 8, and sometimes, there were people from car 10 in their seat. … But I managed to get a window seat and made it to Marseille.
Then, in Marseille, after a short break in the sun, I took another train at 11.57 to go to Nice. Again, there were problems because there were too many people in the train, and they asked everybody who could delay their departure to take another train. Despite this minor setback, we were only 10 minutes late and arrived on time in Nice.
At 3.36 pm, I took my third train to Ventimiglia. The train looked very vintage, with shades of light brown, orange and white. The view on the seaside looked incredible, I get why rich people go to Nice.
At 5.01 pm, I missed my fourth train to Genoa because the SNCF wrote “Foreign train, get your ticket from a machine before your trip” and I thought that I had to get it from a machine in Italy since it was foreign. Nope. I should have gotten it from a machine in FRANCE! Shoot! So I had to buy another ticket to Genoa. Because I’m always planning ahead and imagining what to do in case of problems, I knew that there were other trains, so I wasn’t helpless. The new ticket cost me 15 euros and I arrived in Genoa at 8.30 pm instead of 7.30 pm. Not too bad.
Meeting Cynthia and Reaching The Cinque Terre
Around 7 am, I woke up with a headache. At 10 am, I left the hostel under the rain to take a train. My ticket said that I had to change trains, but I had only 5 minutes in between trains and, unfortunately, the first train was 5 minutes late so… I missed it. But that’s how I met Cynthia, a really cool Argentinian! She was supposed to take the same train as me. We waited for 2 hours for the next one while chatting over some coffee and pastries.
At 1 pm, we finally left Genoa! And that’s when I realized that the train didn’t stop at my final destination: Corniglia. So I got out in Vernazza, the station just before and I took another train to Corniglia. Of course, I met a controller and he asked me a few questions because my ticket didn’t match the train. I thought that I would have to pay a fine, but he said that it was ok. And that’s how I made it to the Cinque Terre!
Next time, I’ll tell you all about the Cinque Terre!
To see more photos of Italy, you can visit the gallery Italy.
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[…] weeks ago, I told you that I had finally managed to reach the Cinque Terre. If you haven’t yet, you can read all about my previous failed attempts to visit one of […]
[…] about the Cinque Terre, here is my article about how I failed three times to go there and here is the article where I tell you about the fourth time that was a success. Finally, you can read about the hikes […]