Polar Bear Swim

Last weekend we went to Cinque Terre—a region of Italian coastline. I highly recommend it as your next vacation spot. We stayed in a quaint little town called Vernazza. Friday and Saturday night was spent lazing about on the rocks, listening to the breaking waves. Several of us spent Saturday hiking through to the towns that are connected by coastal trails. While we were hiking, some of us decided that it would be great if we could say we swam in the Mediterranean sea. Of course it's a little chilly this time of the year, probably around 40 degrees, but we are adventurous souls. So at 7am on Sunday morning, 3 brave souls, Sarah, Andra, and myself took a plunge into the very cold water as Sean and Lisa stood by for moral support (and to capture the moment).

At once we realized the water was freezing and tried to lift ourselves out. Upon realizing that we had overestimated our upper body strength we began swimming to the shore. Being that we were in jeans and sweat pants, this was not easy. At last we reached the shore, shivering but proud! After a few victory photoshots we quickly headed for the hot showers.

Trains

On October 4th my parents and I visited the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Our time at the two sites was enjoyable. Herculaneum was much more intact with many wall paintings and mosaics still in place. Pompeii, although not as well preserved, was a great portal into the life of ancient Romans.

Getting to and from the ruins was a bit of a challenge. When we got the train station in the morning we looked at the departure board and our train was listed but the platform was not. At our departure time the platform was still not listed so finally I went over and looked at the board with the "regular departures". I found that the 8:15 train to Naples usually leaves from platform 8 but it was too late. We had missed our train.

I went back to the information office to find out what we could do. The information office was packed with people and some of them were pretty angry. There really wasn't a line and people just crowded around the two information desk so I nudged my way up to the desk and said got the information lady's attention. She said we could get another train at and pay the ticket difference at 9 euros a person. Of course, when the attendant came to check our tickets he told us that we owned a lot more. Finally, he let us go at 8 euros. We got to Naples and it took 6 people (my family and another family) to figure out which tram to take to the ruins. Eventually that too was figured out and we were on our way.

The way home was almost as complicated. We misread our ticket and thought we were to leave Naples at 9:22 pm, but that was what time we were suppose to arrive in Rome. For some reason I asked to see the ticket on the tram back from Pompeii and that is when we made the discovery. It was already 9pm. We missed our train again. Fortunately there was a really nice man at customer service in Naples who helped us switch around our reservations for a later train and this time we didn't need to pay anything.

Traveling with Trenitalia can be quite the experience.