Great Success in Apartments

So, we left Cinque Terre, and I have many beautiful pictures to post.  I will eventually post them. We stayed longer than we planned, partly because of the great accommodations we got there.  How we got the accommodations a bit of a story.

We arrived in the southernmost village, Riomaggiore, and after taking care of the essentials like getting gelato and cash, we asked around for a hostel.  We were directed to the next town, a beautiful 1km walk up the coast that took us about 15 minutes.  We were slogging up a hill in town to the hostel's alleged location when we saw another backpacker coming down the hill towards us.  She advised us that the hostel was closed for the next two hours, but that she was going to drop her bags at the rail station and do some exploring.  We thought this sounded like a fine idea, so we followed her.  We were shortly standing again, still harnessed to our bags, outside the Riomaggiore train station as our new New Zealander backpacker friend stood in line outside the luggage drop office when we were approached by a large older Italian man.  Evidently attracted by us standing under our bags looking bewildered, he said "You want room?"
The conversation went a bit like this:
Us: "...." (Slightly worried)
Him: "I have lovely apartment in town...you want to see?"
Us, more worried: "We have room in hostel...ostello!"
Him: "Nice room, bathroom, kitchen, only 30 euros per night each."
Us, relieved for having a good reason for turning him down: "We can't afford it, the hostel is cheaper, 22 euros per night."
Him, drooping slightly: "Too expensive? But we have kitchen, is lovely room. OK, 25 euros each."
Us, still dubious: "Well...we'll take a look.  But only a look."

So, we followed him about 100 yards into town to an apartment building where a cute, grandmotherly old woman (his wife we assume) met us on the stairs and showed us an apartment that was, well, it was lovely, just as the man had said.  We had a big bedroom, French windows throughout, a bathroom to ourselves with all the hot water we wanted, a kitchen, a washing machine, and the prospect of roommates with their own self-contained suite.  As a bonus, the apartment key is probably the coolest key known to man, and clearly opens a vault in Gringotts or some object that Dan Brown seeks in addition to the apartment's front door.

In what seems to be our regular patten, we booked two nights, and stayed for five.  On our last night, the man was again waiting by the rail station to pounce upon unsuspecting travelers with his wonderful offer for a great room.  He asked us hopefully if we wanted to stay for one more night again, which we had to decline.  The way we figure it, his wife doesn't give him dinner until he comes home with tenants for the rental apartment in tow.

We also made it our mission to consume gelato in all five towns, and we did.  In fact, we probably had gelato ten times in our five days there.

On the 20th, we met with our landlord in Intra, Verbania, Italy.  Sometime, I'll have to tell you the story of the hostel there, but for now the good news shall suffice.  We met Jon and his wife Julie, saw the apartment, (Jonsplace) and learned all we shall need to run it for a month.  We gave them a stack of cash we'd been nervously carrying around as we accumulated it from the ATMs, and he gave us a key.  The place is small, but in a lovely part of town and quite functional.  Emily is especially excited that there is a gelato shop straight across the street. I was very glad that negotiations had successfully concluded, and just like that we have a cheap place to sleep for November in a scenic part of northern Italy.  The high life shall be ours: gelato, handmade pasta, steaming around to islands, and rich gardens for promenading in.