day 17/18, marina de massa

I’m currently sat in the hostel café 20m from the sea in the shade as it’s sweltering outside, though the breeze is thankfully picking up. Yday was quite a day, we left Milan around 11, got a regionale train for the place which stopped at every village and it took 4 and half hours but that was good, was good to have someone to travel with. There was a hour layover so we got a kebab, but a classy one and it was lovely. We’d booked a hostel close to the sea, got off the train to walk to the hostel and realised we booked the tickets to the wrong station, one too many! So we walked for 3 hours with our bags trying to find this hostel. No-one seemed to speak English and it was a bloody pain, and we had the worst map ever. Went down some bloody long roads and finally got some directions from this dude in a olive oil shop. every time we got directions we were told it would be 2km! We found the road but it was massive, and 2 german’s pulled up in an audi asking for directions to the hostel we were going to, so gave them the directions we had, then 15 mins later a lime green lupo pulled up with this Italian dude saying he was from apuano, the hostel, so we all jumped in and got a lift, thank fuck. The hostel itself is really nice, however there doesn’t seem to be anyone here, not least any backpackers. All we saw when we were walking were Italian tourist it seems. By the time we got to hostel it was 9 in the evening, so went and got some amazing pizza and ate it on the beach (it’s not the nicest looking beach though we didn’t care, it was marvellous. Went to bed pretty early and had a killer sleep, woke up to a boiling day outside, awent for a walk along the beach, it was bloody busy, got some brekkie and chilled out. Did all me washing which is currently hanging up, and tried to sort out me feet where I’ve got a not too nice blister. I’m here for a further 3 nights before heading south somewhere, prob pisa or Florence. Tomorrow we’re waking up early to go to cinque terra, a national park and do some coastal walking, it’s supposed to be real pretty so looking forward to it, as this place isn’t exactly beautiful. Enjoying doing nothing today, get some more pizza in for tea no doubt and chill out. There’s a air show on a beach just down the road so may go check that out, also need to check out a few things on internet, it’s amazing how being offline for a couple of days can throw you, makes hostel and train bookings so much harder, albeit not less fun. x