The 8th of June 2022 was the day I found out my life was about to change forever. I landed home from holiday and went straight from the plane to the first pharmacy I could get to and bought myself a test. We had flown to Italy the previous week for my half Italian nephew's christening where I was made his godmother. We arrived in Pisa and couldn't even really be bothered to go see the famous leaning tower. I had decided to bring my work to Pisa so we just settled into an Internet café and spent a few hours there chilling before we would catch our train. While we were there @celtia ordered a latte and was unculturally surprised to receive a cup of hot frothy milk. They did try to offer him a Café latte, but he insisted on a normal latte and from an Italians perspective, that's what he got!
From Pisa, we got the train to a beautiful spa town called Montecatini where we stayed a couple of nights. Right in the heart of Tuscany, Montecatini is famous for its thermal baths that date back at least as far as the Romans. Sadly the baths hadn't reopened for the public yet, so instead we just enjoyed the good food and drink of Tuscany. We stayed in a small hotel called Hotel Giovanna where our extremely friendly host gave us more alcohol than either of us could handle.
No drinks spilled that night but a whole lot of emotion was and it seemed out of character for the both of us after such a nice day. But we also don't drink together much so I blamed the drink for the abnormally unbearable hangover and tried to rest and rehydrate. Nothing seemed to be working though. By the time @celtia started to feel refreshed I had to just get up and get out for dinner feeling in absolute bits. I'd never had a hangover like it.
I've often found the best way to get over a hangover is to just get on with it, so we decided to go ahead with our plans for that day and climb a bloody mountain! Just a small one with some restaurants at the top. It was more like a really long walk uphill but I hadn't felt so unfit for it in donkeys years. @celtia ploughed ahead, slagging me off for slowing him down. We got to the top and I was famished! It was the first meal I was able to keep down in nearly 24 hours.
The next morning it was time to say goodbye to our little spa town but we promised ourselves we'd be back when we're retired. As I was packing our stuff I was still feeling dreadfully tired and I started to get angry about how slow I was moving. We were headed for Prato where my nephews christening was being held. I really should have been over the hangover by now but my appetite still wasn't the best. It was that day at dinner I started to wonder if there might be a reason I shouldn't be drinking. I could barely stomach the sight of it anyway but how could I still be hungover? Am I late? No... but I was just about due...
Knowing we had an early start in the morning and as I still wasn't feeling rested, we didn't stay for the late evening pizzas. The next day we were headed for Cinque Terre, a string of 5 ancient fishing villages along the west coast. We had planned to visit all of them in just a couple of days.
These towns don't have car worthy roads. You can travel between them by train, by boat or by foot. I had read you could walk them all in a day, so naively I thought 2 full days would be enough. We chose to take the train though since it's just a couple of minutes to get from one town to the next that way, and the trains were coming every 10 minutes or so.
Riomaggiore
With 5 towns to see we really didn't get to see much of Riomaggio, but the pier you see in the photo. I came as far as the water which was rough at the time and sadly didn't take the time to explore.
Manarola
We spent a little more time in Manarola, walked the markets, ate the street food and found a little tunnel out to the stoney beach.
Corniglia
Of the 5, Corniglia is the smallest village and has no beaches since it's up on a cliff 100 metres above sea level. The climb from the bottom is so steep that the 382 steps have to zigzag all the way up to the top.
There was a sense of glory from reaching the top, followed by the deflating realisation that there was a shuttle bus that could have taken us from the train station if we'd looked around first.
It was still worth it for the views... That said, I wasn't carrying anything.
Inside the little town the streets feel like narrow corridors and there are stairways in every gap between the tall colourful shops & houses.
As an ancient town there are no elevators... And we had a top floor apartment with a sea view... You just had to overlook the neighbours balcony that you could almost step out onto through the window if you brought a plank.
Vernazza
We stopped briefly here for some dinner on our last evening and I remember I couldn't stop noticing the smells. Of the ocean, of the nearby food, bakeries, fish, everything... I felt overwhelmed by smells and thought it was just a strange place full of smells until we were on our way back to our apartment and I realised everything there had a strong distinctive smell too. I'd never had such a strong sense of smell before.
When we sat down to eat I also found for the first time in my life I had had enough of Italian food. It wasn't doing it for me anymore. What I would have done for some Irish pork sausages & fried eggs with some baked beans in terribly processed tomato sauce! That would have to wait until we were home. And there was something else on my mind about doing when we got home too.
Monterosso Al Mare
I had grand plans of relaxing on the beach of Monterosso by leaving it till the last morning when we would be departing, but that turned out to be naive too, because we had to check out and carry our suitcases with us. So sadly, this one got missed.
So we boarded our flights for home and I couldn't wait to get a nice fry up of eggs when we got there. We got off the bus and there was one thing I needed to get before we went home. I'd remembered and I knew something had been going on. The emotions, the headaches, the low energy and the heightened sense of smell... We got home and Aunt Flow had still not arrived.
The holiday had been a great distraction. Especially with it being such a rush of a holiday that I know I would have had more energy for 10 years prior. In future, I'll plan for the time needed to rest and recover from travels. But for now, there were more pressing matters. On the 8th of June last year I realised my life was about to change massively forever.
Since then, there's been a lot more story to tell, and I hope to fill you in bit by bit. Of course the story hasn't ended so I can't say it's a "happy ending", but I can say I'm in a happy place..... on the 34th day of my cycle...