It is 7:45 A.M. in Florence and we are standing at the train station with our luggage. We set our alarms early to get ready for our train ride to Cinque Terre. We ate a quick breakfast, checked out of our hotel in Florence and the 4 of us wheeled our 5 large suitcases through the city, rushing to buy our train tickets. It's now 8:00, 8:10, 8:15... we watch the clock as it gets dangerously close to our departure time of 8:25. The giant electronic board still shows no platform number for our train. Suddenly, big, red letters appear on the board next to our train number and our hearts sink. My sister runs to the nearest ticket office and finds out that the employees at one particular train company are on a 24-hour strike. There is no train to Cinque Terre.
Traveling with three other girls, a quick panic ensues. What about our trip? We already made hotel reservations! Are we stuck in Florence? We have about 20 minutes to weigh our options. None of the employees at the train station in Florence are much help. We can try to book another night in Florence and hope that the strike is over in the morning, we can change our train tickets and take a train straight to our last destination, Rome, which would mean not being able to visit Cinque Terre, or we can take a train to Pisa and hope that from there we can catch a train to Cinque Terre, IF the trains that we need aren't cancelled due to the strike. Since we already have reservations in Cinque Terre, we decide to try our luck with the trains. We switch out our tickets and jump on a train headed towards Pisa.
Once we get to Pisa, we are relieved to find that we can get to Cinque Terre! We buy tickets from Pisa to La Spezia, then from La Spezia to Monorola, one of the five towns in Cinque Terre were we are staying. We realize we have about an hour in Pisa. What does one do with an hour in Pisa? We take off running from the train station, through the small city, down side streets and accross a long bridge, until we find ourselves in a small clearing, looking up at the famous Tower of Pisa.
It looks exactly how I pictured it, but feels so surreal to see it in person! We snap a few pictures then jog back to the train station, just in time to grab a pastry and to catch our train. Even with our slight morning panic attack from the train debacle, our unexpected stop in Pisa is one of the highlights of our trip.
Traveling with three other girls, a quick panic ensues. What about our trip? We already made hotel reservations! Are we stuck in Florence? We have about 20 minutes to weigh our options. None of the employees at the train station in Florence are much help. We can try to book another night in Florence and hope that the strike is over in the morning, we can change our train tickets and take a train straight to our last destination, Rome, which would mean not being able to visit Cinque Terre, or we can take a train to Pisa and hope that from there we can catch a train to Cinque Terre, IF the trains that we need aren't cancelled due to the strike. Since we already have reservations in Cinque Terre, we decide to try our luck with the trains. We switch out our tickets and jump on a train headed towards Pisa.
Once we get to Pisa, we are relieved to find that we can get to Cinque Terre! We buy tickets from Pisa to La Spezia, then from La Spezia to Monorola, one of the five towns in Cinque Terre were we are staying. We realize we have about an hour in Pisa. What does one do with an hour in Pisa? We take off running from the train station, through the small city, down side streets and accross a long bridge, until we find ourselves in a small clearing, looking up at the famous Tower of Pisa.
It looks exactly how I pictured it, but feels so surreal to see it in person! We snap a few pictures then jog back to the train station, just in time to grab a pastry and to catch our train. Even with our slight morning panic attack from the train debacle, our unexpected stop in Pisa is one of the highlights of our trip.