Reflections on gaining weight while on vacation

December 19, 2011 by 5 Comments

Once he’s finished packing, Rick asks the desk clerk to send up a scale so we can weigh our luggage. When it arrives I eye it with a mixture of fascination and dread. I try to ignore it as it squats there on the floor like an ugly metal toad, but it’s a ticking time bomb. It draws me, implacably, like a death wish. When Rick goes down to the lobby for something, I strip off my clothes and step on it quickly, before I have time to reconsider.

It’s in kilos, but unfortunately, for anyone possessing a modicum of math skills (the ability to multiply by 2.2, in other words), the ugly truth soon becomes painfully unavoidable. I step off it in shock, then step back on, just in case it made a mistake the first time, but the obscene number stubbornly refuses to change. I’m not trying to be coy, but let’s just say that if Elizabeth Gilbert, of Eat, Pray, Love fame, gained 35 pounds in her four months in Italy, I’m right on track for my three weeks. I put my clothes back on and lie down on the bed, dazed. How could this have happened? I think back over the last three weeks.

Could it possibly have been the three or four scoops of to-die-for gelato a day? Or the yummy fresh focaccia bread studded with bell peppers or black olives (liberally doused with olive oil)? Or maybe the pizza at least once a day, sometimes thin-crust, when I was feeling virtuous, but more often than not, on focaccia bread (liberally doused with olive oil)? Or possibly the sandwich-type pizzas, known as calzone in our country, with two—count ‘em—crusts, and the vegetables, cheese, mushrooms, salami, etc. nestled invitingly inside? Or could it have been the pasta? Was it discovering, in every possible locale, how the tortoni, the tortellini, the cannelloni, the tagliatelle, the spaghetti, the fettuccine, the linguine, etc. are always al dente (and liberally doused with olive oil)? Oh, and let’s not forget the milky, sweet mozzarella cheese that melts in your mouth. . . oops! I guess I also forgot the large rum and coke every afternoon and the liter of wine every night. But even so. . .

Most of my clothes have elastic waists, so I can still squeeze myself into them. That’s a good thing—otherwise I would have to board the plane naked like some chubby overage female putto (are there female putti?). I can’t help feeling frustrated, though, as I soap my elephantine thighs in the shower. Why, damn it all, are the Italian women so slim and beautiful? At first I thought it was all the walking they do. But we’ve walked plenty on this trip, and it didn’t help me (or Liz Gilbert!). Maybe I have the wrong genes. I guess I’m not cut out to be an Italian.

There is the fact that my body did warn me. I have to admit I wasn’t entirely surprised when I stepped on that scale. Every day I’ve felt that I was forcing my metabolism by eating when I wasn’t hungry. It’s just that the food’s so good I couldn’t resist! I comment to Rick that I’ve been feeling like a force-fed goose. He replies that he hasn’t noticed anyone holding a gun to my head. (Okay, he’s definitely in the doghouse now!)

I figure that by the time I get off the plane in Seattle, my liver will be ripe and ready to be surgically excised and processed into a delicious foie gras à la Annie. At least that will take off a few pounds!

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Lake Como

December 12, 2011 by 3 Comments

Today, our last full day in Italy, we take the train to Varenna, a charming little storybook town perched on the edge of Lake Como, a long, narrow lake shaped like a thin, armless man in mid-stride.

Varenna

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was carved out by a glacier, and it’s the deepest lake in Italy (or maybe in all of Europe, I’ve forgotten what the guidebook said). The whole Lake Como region looks like something out of Heidi, since it’s surrounded by the jagged peaks of the Swiss Alps. Varenna is a darling little town with no cars (yay!), at least down by the waterfront.

Across the lake from Varenna

 

 

 

 

 

A walk along the waterfront

 

 

Narrow cobbled lanes rise steeply from the harbor. We walk around and look at the beautiful villas and then visit the small town square, which is surrounded by five churches, no less.

A wedding

 

 

 

 

A couple is getting married in the largest of them. I make a heroic attempt to resist, but finally succumb and go inside, where some other equally obnoxious tourists are already gawking at the bride and groom. (Rick considerately stays outside.) The ceremony concludes, the newlyweds kiss and the organist plays the recessional as the couple walks out, hand in hand. It’s all very romantic, at least for the tourists!

How would you like to have this villa as a weekend retreat?

 

Even the birds are extra specially beautiful here.

 

 

 

 

 

Us

The train ride back to Milan is hot and muggy. All the windows are closed, since it’s raining outside, and the air conditioning isn’t working. There’s a portly priest in a black suit and an immaculate white shirtfront sitting across from us. I decide he must be Latin American because he’s reading a book about Jesus in Spanish and his duffel bag has a luggage tag on it from Avianca Airlines. I’m such a sleuth! What really tips me off, though, is his enormous wristwatch, which has pictures of both Jesus and the Virgin of Guadalupe in garish iridescent hues on its face. He wears a heavy gold chain with the crucifix tucked into his breast pocket, probably to discourage thieves, and sighs gently from time to time as he touches a spotless white handkerchief to his forehead and runs a pudgy brown finger around the inside of his starched white collar. The poor man must be suffering in this heat, but he doesn’t even unbutton his coat. He reminds me of the Mexican priest in The Power and the Glory, one of my favorite novels. I make mental notes about him, especially the watch, for a possible future novel or short story. I wonder if he’s come to Italy for an audience with the Pope.

Now we’re back in our hotel room, resting before going out for our last dinner. At least I’m resting—my industrious husband is busy making a list for customs of everything we’ve bought, and beginning to pack our suitcases. With difficulty he restrains himself from washing our laundry in the bathroom sink one last time, because we can’t get on a plane with suitcases full of wet clothes, but I know it’s grieving his tidy soul that we’re going home with dirty clothes.

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Milan again

December 5, 2011 by 1 Comment

 We’re back in Milan, which seems like a very big city after Vernazza.

Big city!

It’s heavenly to be in our hotel, the Berna, which was the first place we stayed after arriving in Italy. I highly recommend it. Comfortable, quiet, walking distance from the train station, very helpful staff. It seems luxurious after our shoddy creepy apartment in Cinque Terre. We have only two days left in Italy  : (. It’s been such a wonderful trip!

Milano Centrale again

 

 

 

 

So today we go out for pizza for breakfast, as usual (I’ll have to find a way to break myself of that habit once I’m home again. . .) and walk around the city. We sit on a bench at the dog park for a while and watch the pups play and then we walk to a modern art museum. I feel a little nervous walking on the big, wide avenues because a couple of seedy-looking men have already come up to us and and thrust official-looking documents in our faces in an attempt to hustle us. When we first arrived in Milan, in fact, at the beginning of our trip, a man crossed the street and approached us quite aggressively with some story about needing milk for his baby. It was unnerving, especially since there was no one else around and it was dark. Rick pointed out that there are video cameras mounted on the street corners, so I suppose our every move—and the muggers’—are being recorded, though I don’t think that makes much difference at the moment of the mugging. Only later, which wouldn’t do us much good since we’re leaving so soon. . .

Back to the art museum. There’s a very interesting video exhibit by American artist Tony Oursler. Large, amorphous forms are scattered throughout the bottom floor of the museum.

A little too much sun?

You look tired tonight, dear.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m not sure what they’re made of—they could be plaster, papier mâché or even balloons. The important thing is that parts of human faces, mainly eyes and lips, are projected onto the forms. There are no noses or eyebrows. They’re really strange looking.

This piece is about five feet high. . .

The eyes are huge and highly magnified, and they blink and look this way and that. There’s a muted voice in the background—I’m assuming it’s the artist’s—rambling on about various things (mental detritus, my young friend Jordan would call it).

Do you get the feeling someone's watching us??

Upstairs is another exhibit I really enjoy: it consists of tiny little stages and houses, only a few inches square, made of painted cardboard, wire, etc. (Again, I’m not sure what they’re made of because naturally we’re not allowed to touch.) There are teensy papier mâché and wire figures on the stages and in the open rooms of the tiny houses. The houses remind me of the wonderful dollhouse I got for Christmas one year from a doting grandma, three stories high, with tiny perfect furniture and miniscule human figures whose limbs could be bent and posed however you wanted. I usually bent the male and female figures into compromising positions on the beds—I was at that age. Anyway, the fun thing about these tiny stages and houses is that each one is attached by a long flat strip of metal to an iPod, which projects movies onto them. On one of the stages, for example, there’s a little tube that runs along the top of the stage (like a catwalk, but a tube), and there’s a little red figure, maybe half an inch long, worming his way through the tube on his stomach. When he gets to the end he turns around and worms his way back. A comment on the futility of modern life, perhaps? The rat race, hamsters on an exercise wheel, the usual depressing analogies to our modern lives?

The mural on the outside of the museum's not exactly Pollyanna-ish either. . .

At this point the grumpy Italian guard comes up to me and forbids me to take any more photos. So no pics from the tiny-stage exhibit. Sorry!

We find the best gelato of the whole trip on the walk back to our hotel. Even better than Bologna! I get a scoop of deep dark chocolate with pieces of candied orange peel in it, and a scoop of dulce de leche, full of big hunks of soft milky caramel. As we say in LA, OMG!!!!!!!  Now we’re resting for a bit until we can cram some more food in.

 

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Leaving Cinque Terre

November 28, 2011 by 1 Comment

We’re leaving Cinque Terre a day earlier than we had planned because there’s a railroad strike tomorrow. It’s more of a work stoppage, I think, because it’s only for one day. But our departure date is coming up (sniff!), and we don’t want to take a chance on not being in Milan on D-Day. So we buy tickets for the five o’clock train.

We set out early on the two inter-village walks we haven’t done yet. The first, from Vernazza to Corniglia, is very pretty, (though of course it pales in comparison to the magnificent one we took yesterday).The only distracting detail is that I keep smelling dead animals as we hike along. I don’t see any vultures circling overhead, though, so I’m puzzled. Then Rick points out the wadded-up pieces of tissue paper on both sides of the trail. Okay, I guess the smell isn’t from dead animals after all. Yuck!

Corniglia

 

Now we’re done with that hike (luckily we managed to avoid stepping in anything unpleasant), and we’re continuing on to the Via dell’Amore, a short, flat, paved path between Riomaggiore and Manarola.

The Ligurian Sea from the Via dell'Amore

This is the real tourist “hike” of Cinque Terre, because it’s accessible to everyone. It’s touted as a lover’s lane, and the walls are scrawled with romantic graffiti.

I particularly like this romantic declaration: "Me and my hand."

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also, those little padlocks are everywhere. This is a new idea for me—apparently you demonstrate your eternal love for your partner by fastening a padlock to the chain link fence or the guard rail or wherever you can find room.

This is actually in Seoul, Korea, not Italy--but you get the idea.

Then throw away the key, and voilà! Your hearts are locked together, inescapably, for all eternity. Something about that picture doesn’t seem quite right to me—using a padlock to symbolize your love and your commitment. Seriously?

Do I sound cynical? I don’t mean to be. I’m really very romantic! Whatever your views on love, the Via dell’Amore does have spectacular views of the Ligurian Sea crashing against the sheer rocky cliffs below. May your padlocked heart never meet that fate!

Riomaggiore

Back in Vernazza for our last meal in Cinque Terre. It’s Ascension Day, so the Italian tourists are out in force.

Patron saint of lobsters?

We sit down at the outdoor restaurant right below the window of our creepy dank “apartment.” I’m rejoicing at the thought of not having to spend another night there. We order, and prepare to be patient, since the restaurant is full to capacity. As if the poor waiters weren’t harassed enough already, out of a clear blue sky (well, maybe there are one or two tiny clouds), it starts to rain. And it’s not just a gentle sprinkle, it’s a cloudburst, a downpour! We’re sitting halfway under a beach umbrella and halfway under a stone archway, so we scoot over under the building as much as we can. There’s pandemonium in the square as  tourists shriek and run for cover, all those enormous expensive cameras with their huge telephoto lenses getting rained on. The poor waiters are throwing their hands in the air and saying “Madonna!,” as they scurry to and from the kitchen across the square, hunching over the plates in a vain attempt to keep them dry.

All at the same time, the beach umbrellas over the tables start to collapse under the weight of the water. People scream and leap to their feet as spouts of water pour down onto their tables and into their plates. There’s a group of resourceful ladies a couple of tables over from us—I conjecture they must be British because they all have large heavy-duty umbrellas which they calmly unfurl and hold over themselves as they continue to eat.

They're prepared.

This is all vastly entertaining, at least until water starts to pour down Rick’s back. I escape with nothing worse than a big wet spot on the back of my shorts from the rain dripping onto my chair.

We finish our packing and take the little Disneyland train to Monterosso,where we catch the five o’clock express to Milan.

On the road again. . .

We’re tired and ready to get away from the hordes in Cinque Terre, so we doze on the train. Even in my somnolent state, I can’t help noticing a distinguished-looking older man in a business suit with an unhappy expression on his face who comes into our car a couple of stops after we board. Instead of sitting down, he starts lifting up all the little fold-up tables between the seats on both sides of the aisle, including ours, and examining their undersides. He contorts himself into a pretzel in order to look underneath the ones he can’t lift up. He finally takes his seat, looking more miserable than ever. At first I think he’s lost something, but then I realize the more likely explanation is that he has a phobia about chewing gum stuck on the underside of tables. Is there a name for that?

 

 

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Best day yet, continued

November 21, 2011 by Leave a Comment

I’m a bit nervous about meeting a wild boar face to face, but the forest road doesn’t seem to be leading anywhere, so we decide to take our chances and go through the gate, closing it carefully behind us. After a couple hundred meters we come upon the most beautiful and perfect little stone house you can imagine.

Perfect.

It has a little terraced garden in front going down the hillside, and a breathtaking panoramic view.

The view from these lucky people's front yard

I don’t know if the owner rents it out, but this is definitely where I want to stay next time I come to Cinque Terre!!  We don’t run into any cinghiali, luckily.

 

 

We continue along the path and eventually come out of the forest onto a narrow ridgeline. Vineyards descend the sheer slopes on either side of us.

 

 

 

It's really steep!

 

 

Mr. Toad's wild monorail

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here we encounter two workers, the first people we’ve seen all day. They look at us in amazement as if we’ve just dropped out of the sky. We ask for directions back to Manarola.

Just in case the workers get tired.

The path they send us on is obviously used by vineyard workers, not tourists. It’s the narrowest and steepest yet, with little flights of high steep stone steps only about 6 inches wide in places.

Corniglia below us

 

 

 

 

 

We place our feet with care, but even so, I fall off the path into a bramble of wild roses and get all scratched up, and Rick has to haul me out. The amazing views and the solitude make all my cuts and bruises worth it, though.

 

 

 

 

 

Now we’re back in our cheerless rooms in Vernazza, fortified with gelato. In addition to the never-ending din rising from the party-crazed tourists below, there’s another sound now, the crashing and pounding of the surf on the rocks just outside the harbor. We read in Rick Steve’s book that the surf can get very high here, and that you have to be careful because you can actually get swept out to sea. Apparently this happened to some poor woman tourist while he was here—she was dragged out to sea and drowned. An unfortunate end to her vacation! None of this is bothering me right now, though. I’m still on a high from the lovely, perfect walk we’ve just taken. This is the best day I’ve spent in Italy so far!

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Best day yet!!

November 14, 2011 by 3 Comments

The sky is a pearly gray, the breeze is cool and damp, and we’re setting out on a six-mile hike up the mountainside.

Rain? No problem!

It begins to rain just as we’re leaving Manarola, but we’re undeterred–we pass a small open-air store and buy a couple of ponchos. Fortunately the rain doesn’t last long.


Perfect weather for a hike!

For the first few miles, the path winds steeply upward through the cultivated terrain we’ve already seen on our previous hikes, a patchwork quilt of small farms, vineyards and fruit orchards, bordered by a profusion of wildflowers in every possible color.

 

 

Beautiful old doors

 

 

 

We pass farm outbuildings made of weathered stone, old wooden doors studded with medieval-looking iron fixtures set deep into their walls. Even more refreshing than the cool breeze is the solitary state of the path—we don’t run into a single person. We pass through Volastra, a charming little town about two-thirds of the way up the mountainside, and ask for directions.

Volastra's little pastel church

 

 

 

The storekeeper shakes her head disapprovingly and tells us the weather’s not good, and we should head down to Corniglia, but we’re from Washington. A little rain won’t bother us! On the road above Volastra we come to a path marked by a little sign advising walkers not to take it because it’s “not practical.” We take it nonetheless and soon find out why: it quickly dwindles to a tiny track barely wide enough to walk on.

This is a path??

Our legs are getting scratched up from pushing our way through thistles and wild rose brambles, and we have to stoop to avoid the tree branches overhanging the path. We’re hot and dusty and I have a bump developing on my forehead from smacking it against a branch when we finally come out onto a narrow road, overgrown and obviously in disuse.

We’ve climbed above the little farms by this point, and we’re in a pine forest. It’s cool and fragrant and perfectly quiet except for the birds singing in the trees.

Manarola (or is it Corniglia?) seen from the forest path

As we wander along, (with no idea where we’re going) we notice there’s an electric fence running along both sides of the road. We’re wondering why, since it’s dense forest and there are no houses or cultivated fields anywhere around. Rick speculates that it’s to keep people from hiking cross-country, but that doesn’t really make sense because the hillside on both sides of the trail is so steep, it would be very difficult to hike across it without a trail. After a couple of miles, we reach a turnoff with a gate. There’s a sign saying “This is a public path, but please be sure to close the gate behind you so the cinghiali don’t get onto the road.” Okay, now we know what the electric fence is for!

Sorry, Mrs. Cinghiale, we really didn't mean to intrude on your territory. Your children are adorable, by the way! They look just like you! ; )

Next week: More adventures on our hike.

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Cinque Terre, Day Three

November 7, 2011 by 2 Comments

Beautiful Cinque Terre

Tonight we walk up the one main street of Vernazza to have dinner at a little hosteria. We arrive at 7:15, wedge our large, tiresome American selves into the tiny entryway, and attempt to get the attention of the hostess, who is behind the bar drinking white wine with her friends. She looks at us with an annoyed expression that clearly communicates her contempt for anyone who would insist on having dinner even earlier than the barbaric hour of 7:30 we had reserved for, then flicks an imperious finger at the door, and says “fuori.” Outside. I politely remind her that we had specifically requested a table inside, since it looks like it might rain at any moment. She rolls her eyes and motions us into the completely empty dining room.

When she manages to tear herself away from her friends, she bring us a little plate of olive oil and a basket of heavenly focaccia. We discuss the menu and I notice a few Spanish words intermingled with her Italian (not that I’m an expert on Italian, but I do speak Spanish fluently). I ask her where she’s from, and she reluctantly admits she’s Colombian. I get a big smile on my face—I’m always tickled when I guess right about an accent—and immediately begin to speak to her in Spanish, since I figure it’ll be easier all around. She clearly understands, but stubbornly insists on answering me in Italian. I suppose it’s a way of keeping distance between us. I give up and grumble some more to Rick about the unfriendliness of the “natives” in Cinque Terre, though at the same time, I can understand how burned out they must be from having to put up with hordes of tourists day in and day out.

Vernazza's main street

A few minutes later, we witness a much more enjoyable cross-cultural encounter. A man comes in, holding a four- or five-year old girl by the hand. He’s Italian, about forty, with a shaved head, cutoff shorts, and tattoos on his legs. The little girl has blonde curls, pink shorts a white T-shirt, and huge, sea-green eyes. We figure he’s her father, but mom’s not in evidence, and he’s brought a clumsily-wrapped present along, so we conclude the parents must be divorced and this is Dad’s night out with his daughter. They sit down at the next table and he asks her, shall we open the present? Shall we open it? She bounces up and down in her chair, claps her hands and says, yes, yes! It turns out to be bag full of big plastic sea creatures. There’s a dogfish, a lobster, a swordfish, a dolphin, a scary-looking crab, and I don’t know what else. She and her father line them all up on the table and play, inventing different voices for each one. They’re both so absorbed in the adventure of the sea animals they almost forget to eat their dinner. (Rick and I definitely don’t forget to eat ours.)

Wildflowers on the hillside

They finally get up to leave, and as he’s paying, she runs out the door without a backward glance. He calls after her, in Italian, “Where are you going?” and she answers, in English, “I’m leaving!” Rick and I laugh and comment on how beautiful she is. The father says, “Yes, she’s beautiful. She is half American, half Italian. The bad half is American and the good half is Italian. She is unmanageable, just like her mother!” He shakes his head, affably claps us both on the shoulder and leaves.

We decide to stroll down to the main piazza, which takes about thirty seconds, and get some gelato. There we see the little girl and her father again. They’re playing a game where they set her bag of plastic sea animals down in the middle of the square, and then take off running as fast as they can in different directions around the square, to see who arrives back at the bag of plastic animals first. They do this many times. Guess who wins every time? A pretty woman in a green sundress on a park bench drinks a glass of wine as she watches, applauding with maternal pride.

We stroll out to the end of the jetty in the gathering dusk. A flock of seagulls is wheeling around under the low gray clouds, shrieking and swooping down to pick up stray bits of food.

A fine specimen

Behind us, little lights are winking on in the isolated houses and villas up and down the steep slopes behind Vernazza, making the hillside look like a giant Christmas tree. When we walk back to the main square, it’s almost dark, and the dad’s gone, but the little girl is still running back and forth, racing through the crowded tables and chairs in the outdoor restaurants as her mother lounges on the park bench with her glass of wine, talking on her cell phone. All the waiters seem to know the little girl and pat her blonde head as she goes flying by. The diners smile indulgently. Now she’s running down to the tiny beach and chasing a black lab that’s splashing in the water. The lab’s owner, a young woman sitting on the stone seawall, calls to the little girl and gives her a hug when she runs to her. The whole town is her playground! What a wonderful place for a beautiful, unmanageable half-Italian, half-American girl to grow up.

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Cinque Terre, Day 2

October 31, 2011 by 4 Comments

Imagine renting an apartment on the first floor of the Sleeping Beauty Castle in Disneyland on a Sunday in June. Or better yet, throwing a mattress down in the middle of Grand Central Station and trying to catch forty winks. That’s what our first night in Cinque Terre is like: riding a raft on a surging, choppy sea of noise. For some reason, being on the second floor magnifies it. Thank goodness for Ambien!

It’s early in the morning of the next day, though, and things are looking up. Did you know that Cinque Terre is the home of focaccia? This is like no focaccia I’ve eaten before, though. It’s puffy and light and fragrant, and at the same time deliciously oily and salty. I’m eating a focaccia sandwich for breakfast with mozzarella, ham and tomato in it. It’s been toasted, the cheese is halfway melted. . . need I say more? Along with my delicious cappuccino, this is going a long way towards assuaging my grumpiness about the tourists. We’re also getting a rare treat at the moment—the chance to see the real Vernazza, since the revelers are still asleep.

That's our room there, with our socks hanging out the window! That's how close we are to the main square.

Old women dressed in shapeless black dresses, their heads covered with shawls, shuffle across the stone square to the church, throwing baleful glances at their husbands, who are gathering in the little cafés to drink espresso and play dominoes. Fishermen are tidying up their boats and folding their nets, and children are running and playing in the square while their mothers drink coffee, smoke cigarettes and chat. Some little ones are playing in the little waves that lap at the tiny sand beach. I read in my Rick Steves book that the population of Vernazza is 500 people, and I can see that now (although last night it seemed like at least 20,000).

Beginning the hike to Monterrosso

One thing we’ve been looking forward to since before coming to Italy is hiking the trails here. The five villages of Cinque Terre are connected by a network of trails that traverse the steep hills between them. There are also trails you can take that go all the way up to the tops of the hills. We’re avid hikers, so naturally we’re excited about this. We decide to take the trail from Vernazza to Monterrosso, the last of the five towns. This is supposedly the most difficult of the inter-village trails.

So, one last sip of our cappuccinos and we set out. The fun thing is that you don’t have to hike back—you can just jump on the little train and get off at whichever town you want. The trail’s quite narrow and meanders around the hill.

Vernazza, from the hillside trail, getting smaller. . .

It’s a level dirt path interrupted frequently by stretches of steep, narrow steps carved out of the rocky hillside. There are guardrails in some of the narrowest sections, but even so, it’s not the safest trail I’ve ever hiked. I wouldn’t want to be caught on it during a summer storm! In spite of being a bit perilous, it’s a beautiful walk.

and smaller. . .

It winds through lots of steep little hillside farms interspersed with the native landscape and all kinds of wildflowers. There’s beautiful desert vegetation, including prickly pear cactus with big waxy yellow and white blooms, and orchards everywhere: olives, apricots, cherries, figs, all the trees laden with fruit. There are also rows and rows of grapevines and beautiful little plots planted in tomatoes, basil, corn, zucchini, and other vegetables. It’s a Mediterranean paradise, set against the backdrop of the deep blue Ligurian Sea. Far down the steep hillside, you can see the waves crashing against the rocks.

. . .and smaller!

We discover an interesting thing, a tiny track, sort of like a monorail, about five feet above the ground, that winds up so steeply through the fields it’s almost vertical. There’s a small car on the track with a plastic seat on it. I guess the farmers use it to travel up and down the steep hillsides to the various parts of their vineyards and cornfields. I don’t see how they keep from falling off!

Mr. Toad's wild ride

 

Wildflowers everywhere

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At first there aren’t too many people on the trail—it’s early yet—but as we get closer to Monterrosso, there are more and more hikers. It’s a bit dangerous because sometimes the trail is only wide enough for one person, so you have to flatten yourself against the wall or the fence to allow people to go by.

Who's that lovely nymph posed so gracefully on the bridge? With her reinforced theft-proof waist pack on? Oh. . . I guess it's me. : )

We finally arrive in Monterrosso, hot and sweaty. This is one of the larger towns, and it reminds me of the Babar books I loved as a child because the beach is dotted with cheerful blue and white  umbrellas and beach chairs, all in orderly rows, just like in Celesteville.

Approaching Monterrosso

 

 

 

 

 

 

We make a beeline for the nearest gelato stand, where I prove what a pig I am by ordering not one, but two chocolate shakes. I rationalize this gluttony by pointing out to Rick that they’re served in those ice cream soda glasses that get narrower toward the bottom–they don’t really hold much. He nods, but doesn’t appear convinced.

 

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Cinque Terre, Day 1

October 24, 2011 by 2 Comments

After changing trains about three times (I think we missed a connection somewhere), we’ve finally arrived in Cinque Terre.The name means “Five Lands,” and for those who aren’t familiar with it (the cave dwellers, for example, who don’t know how to fasten their seatbelts or that Italy’s national starch is pasta), it’s five miniscule villages wedged between the blue Ligurian Sea and the steep hills that rise directly from it.

Those hills are steep!

Charming Vernazza from the hillside trail.

We’re staying in Vernazza, the fourth of the tiny towns. The little local train runs along and through the rocky hillside above the villages, and with a five-day pass, you can hop on and off it as often as you want. It makes me think of the Disneyland Railroad.

Unfortunately, the train’s not the only thing that reminds me of Disneyland. We get off at Vernazza and make our way down the one main street of the village, and I feel like crying, I’m so disappointed! For some reason, I’ve been expecting Cinque Terre to be a paradisiacal refuge, hidden away from the rest of the world, a group of sleepy, sunny villages where we could lie on the beach, eat, drink wine, read, walk and generally recharge after the soul-killing hordes of tourists we’ve had to battle in almost every Italian city we’ve visited so far. (Whenever I complain about this, my daughter Ellie is quick to remind me that we’re tourists too. I know, I know, but that doesn’t mean I want to be around a million other tourists!! I guess it’s a variation on the “I wouldn’t want to belong to any club that would have someone like me as a member” theme.)

At any rate, when we descend from the train we find ourselves literally lifted off our feet and swept along Vernazza’s main street by a tidal wave of tourists.Venice seems deserted in comparison.

Vernazza: do you think they could fit any more buildings in there?

We reach the main square in under two minutes and by some miracle, run into our host in the midst of the throng. He shows us to our lodgings, an apartment overlooking the square. It’s on the second floor and is so close to the restaurants and bars below that you could easily give your order from the front window to one of the waiters passing by.

Ah, our “apartment” in Vernazza. How do I find the words to do it justice? Let’s see. It’s hideous, first and foremost: dark, gloomy and indescribably shoddy. Everything clashes, from the odds-and-ends collection of cheap, second-hand-store-style furniture to the peeling flocked wallpaper to the red and yellow mosaic tile running full tilt into the disgusting brown shag carpeting that I don’t even want to walk on with my shoes on.

Creepy.

The arrangement of the rooms is helter-skelter, as if someone carved up adjoining apartments to squeeze a third one in between (which is probably what happened). The floors tilt wildly in different directions. It’s like being on a ship or in a carnival funhouse. The floor of our bedroom, which is off the main room, tilts downward so steeply that when I lie down on the bed, all the blood rushes to my head and I began to feel dizzy. My dear husband, ever resourceful, solves this problem. They’re doing construction outside our “front” door, which actually opens on a pitch-black alley in back of the main square, and there are little ends of boards scattered around underneath the scaffolding. Rick gathers them up and piles them under the front legs of the bed, finishing off the stacks with a couple of fat, garishly-covered romance novels no doubt left by previous tenants desperate to distract themselves from their nightmarish surroundings. Ecco! The bed is level.

The front room has a window that looks out over the square, and even in my present grumpy mood I’m forced to admit the view is stunning.

The view from our window (this is early morning, before the hordes descend).

If you ignore the masses of people, Vernazza is charming. Directly below us are the multi-colored umbrellas and awnings that shade the tables of the four or five outdoor restaurants ringing the town square, which is actually a semi-circle bordered on the straight end by a little harbor with a small sand beach and a stone jetty, along which lots of colorful fishing boats are anchored in water so clear you can see all the way to the bottom. Above the square, a jumble of old, pastel-painted buildings, separated by narrow winding lanes, climbs the steep hillsides, and above the buildings, the green slopes are divided into terraced vineyards and tiny farms.

The hills above the town are all cultivated in grapevines and fruit orchards.

An old church stands across the square from our apartment, and its bells chime complicated melodies every few hours. There’s even an ancient castle reigning over the town from high on the hillside. It’s a pretty amazing view!

 

 

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Lucca, continued.

October 17, 2011 by 2 Comments

Trees!

We’re having dinner at a little trattoria in Lucca.Most of the guests are sitting on the outdoor patio, but since I forgot my sweater and I’m afraid I’ll be cold, we’ve asked to sit inside. We’ve been guided to a back room and told proudly that we’ll have it all to ourselves (which isn’t exactly what we want, since we love to people watch.)

Our server, oddly enough, is a middle-aged Scottish woman who speaks English with a heavy brogue. When we ask, she explains that she visited Lucca “on holiday” in 1986, met an Italian man, fell in love, and never went home. She tells us she loves waiting on tables at the restaurant, because she gets to speak English to the customers. At home, apparently, she lives with her dour monolingual Italian mother-in-law. The husband doesn’t seem to be in the picture any longer. Hmm. Sounds like something out of a Hitchcock film. I wonder if small amounts of poison are being added to anyone’s tea.

At that moment, as if on cue, a very vocal, happy British family consisting of three adorable children, their parents, and a grandmother, is ushered in and welcomed as old friends by the Scottish waitress. The grandmother’s very tastefully dressed and reminds me of Lynn Redgrave. The whole family’s remarkably good-looking, in fact. They settle in at the large table right next to us, which means, of course, that we can’t talk about them, especially since we speak the same language. So we have to be content with eavesdropping.

Beautiful Lucca

It turns out to be quite entertaining. I get a kick out of hearing small children speak in British accents—they sound so precocious! These three obviously don’t just sound precocious, they are precocious. The oldest girl, who looks about nine, is explaining to her parents in painstaking detail about how men and women go to a certain kind of doctor to improve their “sexual relationship.” They listen with a straight face, but I can’t help laughing when I hear these words, pronounced so precisely (sek-syu-al), issuing from her nine-year-old mouth. Meanwhile, the smallest boy, who’s about three and named Noah, is roaming around the room, sitting at the empty tables, dropping the silverware onto the floor and crumbling his bread into the wine glasses, as the Scottish waitress looks on with a benevolent eye.

In fact, she’s so enamored with the family (or perhaps I should say enamoured) that it’s difficult to get her attention. When we finally do, we decide to be adventurous and order the crostini with tomatoes and lard. Lard, you say? Yes, lard. Lard is big on a lot of the menus here. You can get lard with wild herbs and olive oil (just in case you didn’t get enough fat with the lard) or lard with tomatoes. I figure it’s a reasonably safe bet to order the lard with tomatoes. It’s got to be the rendered kind, right? That could actually be tasty, like bacon grease on toast with tomatoes. Artery-congealing, but tasty. No such luck. She brings us a piece of toast with several slabs of white fat on it. They’re not like chunks of lard scooped from a can, it’s more like bacon fat, except with no bacon attached. Just the fat. We sit there and look at it until she comes back and asks why we haven’t eaten it. When we demur, she starts in about how delicious it really is. She tells us all about how it’s marinated in local caves on the coast.

No pics of the lard caves, so you'll just have to be content with tourist shots of Lucca. . .

Come again??? Apparently they put the lard into these caves and leave it there for an unspecified amount of time, and somehow it gets seasoned. So now I’m imagining the lard caves of northern Italy. You’d better be careful when you’re spelunking or you’ll find yourself waist deep in marinating lard. I try a teensy bit and it basically tastes like uncooked bacon fat. Well, at least I tried it!

Next week: On to Cinque Terre.

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