Travels large and small

Today was a travel day, but it started with some little travels. Jennifer (the other one), who we are travelling with, has become a parkrun tourist and she convinced me (this Jennifer) to try it out. For those who aren’t part of this cult like experience, parkrun is a weekly free 5km fun run that is done every Saturday in a surprising number of places around the world. And one of them is Florence, so Jennifer and I gave it a go.

It was probably 50/50 locals and tourists, run through a newish park on the fringe of Florence, and there were even bonus snacks as the local organisers ask all their tourist parkrunners to sneak something to share from the hotel buffet. As always with Parkrun, it was a lovely friendly experience at the back of the pack. And I got to sneak some bike riding in there, as it was the quickest way of getting there from our hotel.

That was the warmup for our main event, a train to Manarola, one of the five towns of the Cinque Terre. Sadly everyone else in the world seemed to have the same idea, so the train ride wasn’t quite as calming as it usually is.

All’s well now, though, we have made it through the mosh pit of Italian rail to the glorious view from the balcony of the house we are sharing with Jennifer and Paul for the next few days.