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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