17 hours. That’s how long it took me to get to this week’s vacation destination of Monterosso al Mare, Italy. Monterosso is part of Italy’s Cinque Terre, literally the “five lands”. The area is composed of five seaside villages set on cliffs bordering the Ligurian Sea between Genoa and Pisa. Monterosso is the largest of the five villages with a population of about 1,500 people and is the northernmost village.
My journey started at 2:00PM yesterday, when I left work and headed to Boston’s Logan Airport to board a 6-hour flight to Amsterdam. I flew Delta One, so I had a lie-flat bed and one of the most delicious airplane meals I’ve experienced – buffalo mozzarella ravioli in a parmesan thyme butter sauce… yum! Unfortunately, my early departure from Boston also meant I wasn’t quite ready to sleep, so I only managed to doze a bit before arriving in Amsterdam at 5:30AM.
I hightailed it to KLM’s Crown Lounge and watched the sunrise from a pod seat by the window. Three hours later, I was through EU immigration and boarding my second flight to Florence, Italy. European business class meant I had a row of seats to myself and a lovely breakfast spread. Imagine my delight when I saw pancakes (and yogurt, fruit, granola, and bread). A breakfast treat in the sky! I slathered on the strawberry jam, took a nice big bite of pancake, and… cold. It was cold. Like just came out of the refrigerator cold. What the heck?! Who eats cold pancakes? Anyhow, another two hours and I was touching down in Florence.
The Florence airport is very small so it didn’t take too long to retrieve my luggage and head to the tram that would take me to Florence’s Santa Maria Novella train station. From there, I took a three hour train ride (via Pisa) to Monterosso. Once I arrived in Monterosso, it was about a 15 minute (uphill) walk to my hotel. I had been emailing back and forth with a very nice woman from the hotel last week, so it felt like I already knew her when I walked in. My room is on the small side, but has a beautiful balcony view overlooking the town with the Ligurian Sea in the distance. The garden below my room is full of lemon trees!
I grabbed two slices of focaccia (a local specialty) from a local focacceria and found a bench to enjoy my “dinner”. Honestly, I am so tired that dinner and a quick walk around town were about all I could handle tonight. I could, however, handle a glass of prosecco on my balcony before calling it a night!
Traveling with Laura 