Home sweet home, finally!

Only 25 more steps...yea!

A little Vino to celebrate

9/03/11

Try carrying your bags up these puppies!

The old man...Enrico.

Finally rolled into Corniglia on the 5:50pm train from La Spezia, so trip total elapsed time is 24 hours and 20 minutes to where the train stopped, now for the final hurdle...we can either climb 365 steps with all of our luggage or stuff ourselves into a tiny bus with an inside temperature of 110 degrees...not sure if we could even do 1/2 the stairs, so we choose the bus...1st bus was too packed to accommodate us and our luggage so we waited 1st in line for the next one, the bus stops at 2 different Piazza’s and of course we weren’t sure which and dismounted at the 1st. Our wonderful landlord Enrico had sent us pictures with directions because everything here is alley’s and steps. On our 1st try we found the correct alley, stairs and all. After harassing a couple of locals we found our home for the next month, now if we can only make it up the stairs which is a lot like mountain climbing. A couple of young girls, who were evidently friends of Enrico, saw our plight and offered assistance, with thier help it was much easier than we thought. Enrico met us at the door, and man, was I surprised, all these months of back and forth emails and I had this picture in my head of Enrico...you know, nice elderly gentleman maybe late 60s or early 70s...not even close...Enrico is about 45, long hair and still looks like a kid! My intuition could not have been further from the reality. He was very cool, handed over the keys and left us to figure the rest as we go along. Dinner was a little lasagna some salad and a glass of vino...now we need sleep!