Food

Finally we get started on our first four day weekend in Europe - the Cinque Terra in Italy. It is pretty remote to get to if you aren’t already on a trip of Italy but the photos were so gorgeous and after 15 months in Iraq I needed beautiful. So first thing on Friday morning we started our journey with a train from Ansbach to Frankfurt Main. We had a small wait before our bus to the Frankfurt Hahn airport so we got awesome bratwurst from a shop at the station for 2 euro each. They are amazing and a cheap lunch. Its about an hour ride from Frankfurt main train station and costs 11 euro a piece.
Ryan Air is a ticketless airline so you just bring your reservation number and ID. It was much more painless than I thought. I paid 20 euro extra for priority boarding. Ryanair doesn’t not assign seats so they are first come first serve. If you have a priority boarding pass you can get on the plane first and chose any seat you want. We got a front seat with a bit more leg room. Ryan air is pretty stringent with weight of luggage and you have to pay for your snacks/drinks in flight but other than that I was not disappointed. The flight went smoothly and we got to Pisa Airport on time. From there we took yet another train to pisa central then on to Vernazza. We were able to buy the tickets right there in the airport so easy once again. After about 14 hours of travel we decided to take our ticket all the way to Monterosso for dinner. It was easy to do since we were just carrying backpacks so didn’t need to stop at the hotel to set down our stuff.

Rick Steves called Mikys Restaurant in Monterosso the greatest value food in the chinque terra. We did not have a reservation but still got a great table outside. We got bread, cinque terra wine which is fabulous and a “pizza pasta” with shrimp, handmade pasta and zucchini. The pasta was in a deep dish with a thin layer of pizza crust that is baked on top.
It was one of many great first meals in the cinque terra.
So the Cinque Terra means five towns which include Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Monarola and Rio Maggiorre. There is a local train system that runs between these towns although sometimes it just goes straight from one end to the other. And of course this is what we did on our first night. After dinner we went back to the train station and no ticket booths were open so we got on a train that went all the way to Rio Maggiorre. So there we had to wait 30 minutes for a train to go back to vernazza. We found that no one checked tickets on the trains and you couldn’t buy a ticket at night anyway so we didn’t waste much more money on them.
When we finally got to Vernazza we found our hostel room very easily. They were already closed at check in but Elisabetta had left our key on the door. Hotel Elisabetta has a few rooms that cost about 145 euro for two nights. We had a downstairs with bathroom, small kitchen and couch. Upstairs had a bed a great windows that kept us cool at night. I was excited about our first hostel experience and getting to cinque terra so we headed back down to the town for gelato. I got a scoop of mint chocolate chip and curt got strawberry from Stalins Gelateria.