Europe 2016 Sept 27th Day 30 Manarola

This morning we were up at a reasonable hour as we were going to walk. Our host informed us no luck re extending our stay in Manarola, so off we set UP the hill. And up it was, step after step after step. The views looking back over the town and along the coast were fantastic. It was ingenious how the villagers had created the terraces along almost vertical hills, and planted vineyards along them. Almost 2000 miles of rock walls apparently, every rock carted by hand. There were many stops on the way up and a small glass of lemonade in the middle of nowhere on the trail was a most welcome relief. They had also built a sort of "railway" to use the term loosely, in a couple of spots that consisted of a single "line" about 75mm square tube with notches on the underside, similar to rack and pinion. The "locomotive" was simply a small 2 stroke motor with a couple of large cogs to mesh with the rack, seat for the driver and "carriages". The rails were suspended by triangles of 3 x 25mm round tubing stuck in the ground occasionally. Saw it in use twice, once carting bags of cement up to a building site and the other taking bins of grapes down to the bottom. No way would i ever get on that thing. It took us one and a half hours to get the the top, which was the town of Volastra where we stopped for a drink before heading down towards the town of Corniglia. Got caught behind two tour groups obviously dropped off by bus at Volastra, which were both about 20 people in size and took forever to get past them on the narrow path. Finally did and it was a lovely walk till about half way down when my foot slipped on some loose stones and I went down hard with right leg out and the left buckled under onto my backside doing something to my left knee, hip and quads. Think I saved the camera though, much more important. It was then a slow, painful walk to the bottom, the views were spectacular though. When we got to the town we were met by a multitude of steps to get to the train station. In actual fact 444 steps to the bottom and it wasn't till we got to the bottom that Jane saw the sign for the little bus between the station and the town. Now you tell me !!!!
Got back to Manarola and of course most places shut until four, so back to our room for ICE treatment, using the very cold beer bottle (500ml) in our fridge as the ice component. When the pharmacy opened at four Jane was able to get some pills and bandage as well as an elastic knee bandage to wrap and compress as I was not going to miss our sunset boat ride at five. How can a nurse run out of Panadol and ibuprofen after 4 weeks, I ask you?
We met Daniele at 5pm and walked down to his boat in the harbour with four other couples and we were off for three hours on a cinque terre sunset "cruise". It was fantastic, Daniele was engaging, funny and informative, the other people were all lovely and the endless supply of Vino Bianco and beer from the Esky got all in a jovial mood. It was a beautiful night and the water was almost still as went along the whole coastline, stopping for thirty minutes in Monterossa before heading back via Reomaggiore to Manarola. We have been so lucky with the few tours we have done, as the guides have been great and the tours fantastic.
We then wandered back up the hill to one of the restaurants, where Jane had the most delicious fish ravioli and I had a good plate of rubber bands masquerading as fried calamari. A little half bottle of local Cinque Terre Vino Bianco did help it go down, before finishing with a large slice of homemade tiramisu to share. Great end to a wonderful day, now just to get back up the hill to our lodgings. :-)
You won't see many photos  of the walk or cruise as trouble with another sd card trying to download the images. Bugger.