2004
Thursday, July 22 - Santa Margherita
Lodging: Sleeper train at night headed back to Roma.

Santa Margherita, late tonight (1:10am) headed back to Roma.

We woke up before 8:00 AM. Erica took a shower before breakfast, and we both headed up to the terrace of the other building for the usual breakfast. When Italians talk about breakfast, we guess they really mean a bunch of bread with various spreads and strong coffee. I am not so crazy about breakfast away from the states. Even the places that advertise American Breakfast do not come close truly. Nothing like Bob Evans for a true American Breakfast.

We settled the bill with Roberto after breakfast and he let us know we could keep our luggage in our buildings living area or salon until we departed for the station. He said he would arrange a taxi for us if we wanted to leave for the station after the last bus (about 8:00 PM). Considering the station is basically a bare buidling next to three sets of tracks, we opted for the taxi. We did not get a chance to let Roberto know before he headed to town and no one else in residence could understand enough English to let him know.

Erica voted for staying in Santa Margherita for the day instead of getting to and hiking around Cinque Terre (even though we here it is the best part of Italy). We headed back to the room, Gregg took a shower and we both packed up. We put our luggage down in the living room, probably close to 11:00 AM. We then started down the trail of many steps into Santa Margherita.

What to say about our day in Santa Margherita.... Well... we tried to get on to the Internet to upload more journal entries with no success. The one place we tried would not let us plug the laptop into their connection; they said the laptop was not compatible with their connection. ???

Erica had seen an inexpensive place to eat while Gregg was trying the Internet place. Gregg was hungry so we went ahead to the restaurant. We enjoyed Margherita pizzas (magnifico!), water and cappuccinos. The bill was somewhere around 17 euro. Not bad.

We then walked and walked, and walked some more. We went all around Santa Margherita, Gregg says three times. Erica wanted to do some shopping and a little town sightseeing. Unfortunately, we really started our attempt at shopping when most businesses were closed for their siesta (afternoon break).

After a very long day of walking around and around and around, we decided we had time for dinner before trying to catch the bus to San Lorenzo, up the hill from Villa Gnocchi. We went to Ristorante de Michele (or something like that) and had a lovely dinner. Gregg wanted the insalata, potatoes, and he had ravioli in bolognese. Erica helped Gregg with the insalata and potatoes and had linguini with shrimp in a curry sauce. Erica had some beer and we both had water. Yummy!

We then went to find a big bottle of water before grabbing the bus. Erica saw the bus before we finally found a big bottle of water to take with us. (We paid more for the water than we wanted to, but it still was better then what we have paid in the past, 2 euro.) We then crossed the street to the bus stop. It was about 7:25 PM and we soon deduced that we had missed the last #73 bus from that stop. We had two options, take a taxi or hike up the trail - super stairmaster. We knew we were taking a taxi to the station and we knew that would cost about 20 euro. Gregg did not want to waste any more money so he voted to walk up the super stairmaster again. Erica was agreeable either way. And so we went...

What a climb! When we arrived at Villa Gnocchi we planned on hanging out in the salon until the taxi arrived and play around on the laptop, check out our pictures, perhaps watch a movie... We saw a family of guests arrive as we were walking on the drive and Roberto was coming out to greet them. We helped with the luggage and talked a little with Roberto about arranging the taxi for late that night. He offered, if we wanted to save some money, he would be going into town to visit his children around 10 or 10:30 PM and he would be willing to take us to the station. How nice! We jumped on his offer and offered him some money, but he said he was going anyway, no bother. How nice!

So...we hung out in the salon and worked on a picture DVD of our Italian Adventure thus far. It is going to be pretty cool and will help us remember all that we have seen. After a while it really starts to blend all together!

Roberto came to the salon sometime after 10:00 PM to take us to the station. We packed up and went with Roberto. Italian drivers are so much more aggressive than even Gregg! Erica kept thinking - if only Heather could see this!

Then we got to hang out at the station for about three hours until our train came. We played with the laptop some more, worked on the DVD more, took some pictures, downloaded the pictures from that day, etc.