The return of devil's throat, three trains and sent to bed without supper

Said goodbye to Snoopy sheets, dark bathrooms and mosquitos (they have not played a starring role in this blog, but today I woke up with 5 bites on my face!!) in the house this morning. I woke up feeling sickly, with a searing sore throat rejoining my never ending illness repertoire. We had our last vaporetto ride, an unsatisfying two stop crowded trip to the train station and then sought out food. The restaurant at the train station surprisingly had decent food on its menu (no McDonald's!) and we dined on pasta and pizza. Well, Alex dined and I choked down pasta with wincing pain. We ordered gelato served in a bowl with coffee and whipped cream. It felt so good on the throat and was so tasty. Alex said we should order dessert seconds, and I figured that it would be throat therapy. When the waiter heard our request for another round, we both thought that perhaps he were joking. No one orders seconds of dessert after all. This theory proved to be true when 15 minutes later, no seconds appeared and our waiter was wondering if we needed our check. Train coming soon, we opted to pay the bill and find our platform.

We took a lovely, air conditioned train with ample room to Milan, about a two hour ride from Venice and it was perfect for napping and nursing the super villains cough and sore throat. But in Milan, we changed to regional trains with no air, not room and no fun. Two and a half hours of interesting but uncomfortable training followed. Oh the passengers we watched. There was the really tall German guy with the endless supply of seeds and nuts to eat, who, if you made eye contact with him, gave you a smile just like Will Ferrel's character in Elf. Then there was the girl sitting next to me and across from Alex, who slept in an amazingly contorted position in the tiny seats we were allocated. She turned out to be very friendly and helped us get to our next stop successfully. 

By train number three, another local from Genova to Monterosso al Mare, we were very hungry and I was quite sick. The last ride was similar to the previous regional train, but this one felt better because the weather had cooled down (what's with 85 degree temps in late September??) and the train was less crowded. At 8:00 PM we finally arrived at our destination, Cinque Terre. The terre we are staying is is Monterosso al Mare. I've been here before with my mom in 2013, and Alex and I were staying at the same B&B this time. We met Francesco and his wife Fredderica at their bar, Fast Bar, and then took the 100 step walk up to our beautiful little home in the hills. All settled, Alex wanted to get dinner. We hadn't eaten since Venice. But I was feeling really unwell and tired and the thought of going back down the 100 steps again was too much for me. Alex considered going on his own, but in the end, he also was not up for the hike to food. And so we went to sleep, hungry and in my case, stubbornly still sick. Adventures await tomorrow!