The Cube

Activities the next day started with Notre Dame de Paris. We were armed with the Paris Pass which we bought in Arc de Triomphe the day before but queue was unavoidable.


Likewise Sacre Coeur, one could get the city view from Notre Dame. However, we went up to this one.


We were not the only ones looking out at the city...

... the gargoyles were also looking at the same view :)

There were time limit as to how long one can stay at the tower, to give a chance for other people to climb up. We reckon all those climbing up the staircase to towers worked off all the food we indulged :P

Saint Chapelle is famous of the stained glass windows. Here's how the interior looked like.


The windows illustrate the figures from the Bible, hence every picture is different.




Next to Saint Chapelle is this building - Palais de Justice


Nearby is the Conciergerie - Paris' oldest prison, it is where Marie Antionette and later the leaders of the Revolution were held before their execution (source: sacred destination)



Personally, I don't think Conciergerie is worth a visit. The pictures showed what you see inside... the description of the place sounds good, and it was next to Sainte Chapelle and the cost of admission is included in the Paris Pass... hence we were there... but of course, the choice of to visit or not is up to the individual.

Next monument - Pantheon. It is located in the Latin Quarter. I think it is a rather beautiful building. Again, like Notre Dame and Sacre Couer, one can see Paris view from this building.



I know its the weekend.. but can you hear the sighs of the heart?



Side note: Raspberry shortcakes are addictive!

LOL... had the "calling" to continue with the Europe travel posts after stuck in Italy for awhile.

We took a night flight from Venice to Paris, it was the only scheduled flight for that budget airline that we took - Ryanair. Not within expectation that it took quite a while to travel from the airport to the city. And... Paris is huge. We took a bus from the airport to the city. From where the bus stopped to our booked budget hotel, it was a really long journey.

Bad news - it was after 12am.
Good news - the train was still running.

More bad news - Cant speak a word of French, my French is worse than my Italian which is non-existent.
Better news - They speak English, and the ones we met were not as snobbish as imagined, in fact are more helpful than Italians.

More more bad news - Reached the hotel but the doors were locked!
A much better news - The guy opened the door despite a little grumpy. I can't complain, at the very least, he opened the door and let us checked it. *Phew

Despite being named as hotel, it was in fact one of the not-so-nice place we stayed in. One major reason (despite the grumpy receptionist) was that it as a curfew at 12pm. They did not give out keys for the maindoor unlike the rest of the B&B and hotel we stayed in (dorm is excluded as it was mentioned upfront). Location wise - it was near to the major train station Gare du Nord but it was a bit of a travel from Eiffel Tower, in fact rather tight if want to wait for the lights to be up and be back before the curfew.

Anyways, after a night rest, our first stop - Arc de Triomphe


It is in fact... a roundabout, a very big one. And there are a lot of chinese tourists when we were there along with people (I think are gypsies) trying to sell things.

From there, we walked till reached Place de la Concorde, and made a stop for crepe with chocolate and banana. Umm... no picture. :P

Obélisque de Luxor (I don't know why but everytime I see the name, I thought of Obelix from the comic)

Next up was Sacre Coeur. I remembered it was rather warm at this point of time, quite a change from Italy. Was later told it was a sudden influx in temperature.


There are shops leading up to the building and a market outside of the building. There was a shop selling nice paintings of surrounding area and sister was tempted to buy it but was contemplating of how to bring it back and that we might find it elsewhere... strange but we never seen it at other places. As at this point, we were rather spoilt by nice gelato in Italy and when we saw gelato at sale, we were tempted to a try. Unfortunately, not only it was more pricey, it wasn't as nice as those we had in the neighbouring country.

Ok... back to Sacre Coeur. We didnt go in but here's the view from opposite of the building.


I wish it was quieter and more serene but it was nowhere near that. There were a lot of people and there was music blasting out from a radio. We didn't linger long and last stop of the day...



Side note: PH coming to an end... :(

It feels like I was stuck in Italy eh? But we did leave, in fact Venezia (Venice) was our last stop. Venice is packed full of tourist and seem very popular with Chinese tourist. All the missing in action chinese tourists starting from Florence up, started to re-appear :P

The main transportation in Venice (island) is by foot and water, unfortunately water buses aren't cheap. The standard fare is €6,50 but there are option of tourist travel pass giving option of 12 hours, 24 hours, 36 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours, or 7 days. We bought the 24 hour pass for €36.

Despite Venice is a very touristy place, I like Venice - the cosy, narrow alleys...


... though I am hopeless in finding my way

Walking through the alley ways feels like going around in a big maze...


... with only certain alley way able to connect to the next one...

It was funny how canal cruises are suggested as one of the itinery for a few of the places we went - Amsterdam, Brugge, Paris, Venice. We did not take the cruise but then again, taking water bus in Venice is sort of cruise in a way eh?


And no, we didn't go for the gondola ride. Sis said gondola rides are for couples, if both of us go on one, people will think we are a couple :P


The famous St Mark's Square in Venice, a very big square... not to be missed. Somehow I find it difficult to take a presentable in this square... buildings are too big to be fit in a nice angle or something :(

When we were there, I spotted someone carrying a supermarket plastic bag and I went over to asked him where was the supermarket. We were desperate to find cheap bottle water :P but unfortunately, err.. we can't find the supermarket, no thanks to my lack of sense of direction. Also, supermarkets were closed by then.



Venice is also famous for squid ink pasta (al nero di seppie), it was cook with spaghetti in the shops we saw in Venice but sister said she wanted to try one with tagliolini... think that's the famous one.


We tried twice, but the first one in some bar, looks a bit dodgy :P the whole bar is only served by one man. It is call squid ink pasta, hence the black colour, and yes, it will make the teeth looks black :P (top row, 3rd from left and bottom row, middle)
The rest are some of the food we had in Venice.


And here are some of the biscuits and sweets from a shop in Venice. We wanted to try one and sister took a photo of it, then off we went in to the shop and showed it to a lady manning the shop to buy it :P The lady laughed and told the whole shop! :P

I don't know, but somehow I think Venice has this magic, making you feel at home :)


And maybe, next time if tour guide and I happen to go to Venice, I will get to try cruising in a gondola :P


Side note: Another hour to go... I hope Telstra will not FFK me :(

LOL :P


Side note: Happy birthday tour guide!

It is the largest of the 5 and has long stretch of beach, that is said to be a major attraction to this village. We were there in May, it was not the high tourist season yet. There were quite a fair bit of people but definitely not as crowded yet.



The sand wasn't those described as white, fine sand but I like how mountains are lined up and looked as if it was layered.


We walked to the all the way to the centre of the village...



.. till we stumbled upon a small lane leading to a quieter path of greenery.


At that time, we didn't know where this would bring us, in fact we thought we might be trespassing somewhere we shouldn't be as we were told that the walking paths were closed. However we did walked a bit but turned back, that was probably wise as we did not have any walking map with us.

We then walked back to the train station and hopped on the train to Riomaggiore. Before there... another look on Monterosso.



Side note: *exercising on the neck*

The initial plan was to post village by village from the most south village Riomaggiore, going up to Monterosso. However it seem odd to chuck in Corniglia when the trekking obviously brought us to Vernazza. So, it make it a little organised to put both villages together. Anyway...

It was passed noon when we reached Vernazza. Vernazza is said to be the prettiest of the 5 villages. Maybe that explains as to why among the 5 villages, it was most crowded.


It has a pier and there were many boats nearby. Also, it seems much colourful in this village. We walked about the village and bought some souvenirs. It was fairly difficult to find souvenir that mentioned of 5 terre instead of individual villages, but then again, I guess getting people to buy one for each village is definitely more profitable.


We decided to travel out of Vernazza by taking the train. Train stopped in the tunnel when reached Vernazza, just follow the crowd and you will reached the village :P

Before that, we had pesto pizza for lunch. Yup, there were pesto pasta and now pesto pizza :P It was actually one of the nicest pizza we had by far.


We took the train to Corniglia, the only village that we have not visited then (Monterosso being the first village we visited after stopping in Manarola to check in to the hostel).

One significant difference between Corniglia and the remaining village was that the town centre is much further from the train station. Of course one could still reach by foot, but there were shuttle buses from train station to the town centre. The cinque terre train/bus pass holders travel without further charges.


Corniglia is also the only town not directly on water, it's on top of a cliff.




We didn't stay long in Corniglia, it was getting late and the town was getting quiet. Also we wanted to be back in time during the 'window' period when the hostel opened for dinner.


Side note: High tea in QVB tomorrow! :)

The famous coastal trail leading from Riomaggiore to Monterosso was unfortunately closed due to heavy rain for safety reasons. However there are other trails to track, starting off from Manarola where we stayed. The people from the hostel suggested a trail from Manarola, which the starting point happened to be just further up the road, via Volastra and all the way to Vernazza.


On the way to the starting entry point, we passed this beautiful very mini version of waterfall. There are check points to keep hikers in check to make sure that people are not off the trail. It is in the form of red and white stripe.

At the point when we took this picture, we were near to trail leading to Groppo. Also at this point, I was getting warm from the walks and the jacket was taken off and shoved into the bag.



It was unfortunate about the coastal walk, but mountain views are breathtaking too :)

It was then followed by many, many, many steps uphill and we had to get off the walking trail as certain parts were to be avoided due to possible landslide and closure. We continued the walking journey on tar road... till we saw this.. and we stopped and started snapping pictures :P

These 5 villages by the sea are just beautiful. I believe the view by the closed coastal trail would have been magnificent.



Ah... see that railway track by the sea!


So you see.. the houses in the village is facing the sea with backyard of mountains. Like how those HK tv shows describes expensive mansions.

There was much more of walking involved and by this point, we were a little worry that we have missed the entry point to go down to the village. There were not a lot of cars, even lesser were people on foot. That equal to nobody for us to ask to see if we have missed the village. The story was if we missed the exit, we risked walking all the way to the mountains. Out of desperation, we flagged down a car to keep us in check. :P The driver thought we wanted to hitchhike but hehe.. he was willing to drive us to Corniglia but we declined but were really grateful.


Imagine our joy when we saw this. Yay! It meant that we have walked from Manarola and approaching to Corniglia... just need to hike all the way down.


See the village down at the end? Thats the destination...

But... these were the obstacles...


Verdict? We didn't make it down to Corniglia. The walking path somehow just died off. We reached a point where there just wasn't a path to walk. Our heart sank. It was quite a steep hike down, which translates to... a steep hike back up. So, back we went, retracing our steps and back to the tar road once again...

... till we come to this sign that read, "Vernazza 1 H 7." We have walked to the next village after Corniglia and that was the route we have to take. Going on further will lead to Monterosso if lucky, otherwise, all the way up to the mountains.



This trail was much better. We met slightly more people on this trail. Despite needing us to cross vineyards, bushes ...

And finally we came to Vernazza...


We later found out that the trail to Corniglia may have been closed too due to the rain. So it was a blessing in disguise not having to trek all the way down before coming back up again :)


Side note: Watching Burn Notice on bed...
Phew.. that was a long one...