Today had some highs and lows. We started our day waking up at 4:30 to catch our flight to Pisa, Italy. I have to say the CDG is not my favorite airport. We got there and it was really hard to tell where we were suppose to go. Luckily we found the Airfrance desk. They directed us outside to catch a bus that would take us to another terminal. So we waited for that and got to the right spot. This terminal was much, much easier to navigate. It was even easier than CAK which I didn't think was possible. We walked right up checked our bags, spent 5 min going through security (we didn't even have to take off our shoes) and we were waiting it the waiting area. It seems that all European airports like to wait till right before your flight to tell you where your terminal is. After an hour we got our terminal assignment and started to follow the crowd. On our way to the gate we stopped to get a chocolate croissant. We were so busy eating and following the crowd we didn't pay attention to the signs. We soon realized we were going in the wrong direction. We of course corrected and headed to the right gate. No joke we were honestly the last ones on the plane. That was a close call. We tried to sleep most of the way, but the breath taking views of the Alps made it hard at times. We landed and had to take another bus to get to the car rental place. We got to our car and got situated. It has been more than 10 years since Mike has driven a manual car. He was a bit rusty at first and it was slightly scary. He was jerking the car all around and I had this feeling I was going to end up sick. I decided to go in and see if they had any automatic cars on the lot. My exact words we "My husband hasn't driven stick in a long time and is a bit rusty. Do you have any manual cars on the lot?"
The guy looked at me so funny. He asked what do you mean rusty? And do you mean a manual car? Haha. Bad use of English idioms. Anyways he told us no so we just had to practice a little first. Finally he got
the hang of it and we were off. We found the freeway easily with the GPS leading the way. We started listening to the new Dan Brown book, Inferno, and had a snack. All seemed to be going perfectly. Then I noticed the GPS had half of its battery life left and was plugged into the the power source. I tried to push it in further and nothing seemed to work. I started to semi panic but figured where'd be able to get it to work. The GPS had no instruction. We had borrowed a GPS from our friends so I pulled that out and tried to get it to plug in thinking our gps had a faulty plug. No dice, it wouldn't work either and was dead. Our power source was broken. I pulled out the car manual to see what I could learn. Every single manual was in Italian. Then the power switched to yellow and we still had 45 min to go. Panic set in more as I knew once we got off the freeway we had half an hour of winding, twisting, confusing roads. We said a prayer that we would be able to figure out a way to get there and that we would be kept safe. Luckily Mike's phone has international capabilities so I turned it on and googled "Fiat power source not charging." No luck. So I put the address into google maps and it pulled it up but said the GPS function would not work. AHH! I was all out of ideas. And just then the battery went red and started to flash. When my GPS does that I have 5 min tops. I tried to remain calm and knew The Lord would keep us safe. I had some very vague directions from the B&B website I had printed so I looked them over and prepared myself mentally to become Mikes GPS. This is when the roads got really scared. They were literally up a
cliff, hardly any railing with tight roads. Mike was doing all this driving in a stick. He was a champ. Somehow he managed to keep his cool and drive safely. Miraculously the GPS kept working and I was able to warn him when a curve was coming up or was particularly tight. We got closer and closer to our B&B as the GPS kept working. About 25 min after it turned red and 9 min away Mike asked if it was still working. I said yes, and he replied that he knew it was God that was powering the thing. Right after he said that it stopped working and we came to
a fork in the road. I figured we'd go the way the sign that said Monterosso since that was were we were staying. We drove about 8 minutes then dead ended into a restricted area. We drove up to a parking lot and called the B&B for directions. Mike was shaking from nerves and declared this was much worse than driving in the UK. I
didn't blame him. The gal on the phone told us to go back up the road and make a left where the sign said Fagini. So we went all the way back up to the same spot the GPS stopped working and took the other
road. Looking back the GPS gave one final instruction to turn right in 50 yards. That would have put us on the right road. Unfortunately I panicked a little and gave the wrong direction. Within 8 min we were
unloading our bags at our beautiful B&B. luckily the GPS we used had a USB charger and we were able to plug it into our iPad charger deal and charge it. We felt so blessed and looked after.
After a small recovery period from all the nerves we headed down the road to the beach. Holy cow was it beautiful! I couldn't believe how gorgeous the water was or how charming the village was. We walked around a little and got a feel for the town. Then we hunted down some food. We had a margarita pizza, gnocchi pesto (since Cinque Terra is where pesto was invented) and a tomato, motz, oregano panini. It was delicious and very, very filling. After lunch we set off on the hike between Monterosso and Vernazza. It was a workout. Seriously! I was dying. I told Mike I was hiking for two and we would have to take it slow. I was slightly happy when I started to hear him panting as well. The views were well worth the exhaustion though. So we carried on with vigor. We passed a bar on the trail. The guy sold lemonade, water and lemoncillo. We were dying since we didn't bring much water (and it was 80+ degrees plus humidity.) We jumped at the chance to buy a lemonade. Everyone on the trail seemed to stop for something. I told Mike it was probably the worlds most profitable lemonade stand. The hike took us about 2 hours to finish. Which wouldn't have been bad had we prepared for it a little better (left earlier in the day and brought cold water.) When we finally got to the town of Vernazza Mikes back was soaked in sweat where he had carried our backpack and my legs were so tired that anytime I stopped it started shaking and having spasms. We walked through town and decided we would not be hiking any more. I wanted to see the town of Manarola so we took the train there. We didn't spend to much time there since it was getting late and Mike was still fighting jet lag. We got some great pictures then headed back. I loved the atmosphere of these small fishing towns. Seriously right out of a book. Once we got back to town we had some delicious gelato
and headed back to the B&B. We had a deck so Mike enjoyed the sunset outside while I got a few things organized for the next day. Sleep came very easy for us that night.
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