finally, the beach_

thursday morning (apr 28th) we got up early, determined to go to the beach. our castiglion buddies recommended cinque terra, a beautiful area with 5 small towns perched above a gorgeous bay about 1 hr north of pisa. we arrived at monterosso (one of the 5 towns) in the early afternoon and scoped out a place on the sandy/rocky beach ( below). it was a beautiful and, from what we heard, abnormally hot day, so we definately lucked out. the water was pretty cold, but crystal clear, so it made up for it (above). we splashed around some, laid out some, had a picnic of sorts, and left with a couple bottles of nice wine to take home. practically flawless afternoon. but this when things became more complicated. we had planned to catch the train back to pisa and have about 1 hr and 45 min to get from the train station to the airport. plenty of course. well, we got back to the train station where we had our bags put in storage. unfortunately, no one was at the office to get them out. our train was scheduled to be there in a few minutes, where are they? finally someone came and we quickly got our things and headed to our scheduled platform. phew, that was close......waiting for the train.....waiting...hmmm, whats going on. ok, so we waited there for almost an hour. for some really weird reason, our train was almost an hour late. we are getting a little nervous on the way to pisa as we watch the seconds tick by. we get to pisa about 40 minutes before our flight was scheduled to leave. mind you, according to easyjet, check in stops 30 min. prior to departure. if they are strict on that we only have 10 min. we more or less sprinted with all of our stuff out front of the train station and go to a taxi. airport please, and step on it. but he says he can only take 4 people, not 5. what do we do. i am not exactly sure how to get to the airport from here, but i was gonna leave my bag with them, and sprint in the general direction. ok, he says, i guess i can take 5 people. well lets go then. so in this country of mario andretti's all ove the streets, we have to get the least aggressive driver around. regardless, he gets us there, where we tip him well and run stright to the check in counter right at 30 min. before departure (good thing i didnt run. it was further than i thought). so we caught our plane to berlin that night, along with an exciting story to tell.