After a wonderful stay with Mike and Eileen, it was time to part. Without our trusty steed Lucia, it was back to the trains for us. Mike and Eileen dropped us off in Follonica, and from there we caught the train to La Spezia. There, a short regional train connects to each of the 5 towns that comprise the Cinque Terre.
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| On the train again |
The Cinque Terre is a national reserve, and home to five prominent towns. Aside from these five towns there is little in the way of civilization in the Cinque Terre: Very few cars are allowed in, and the only connection between the five and the outside worlds is via train, or hiking trails. It is beautiful country: Nestled against cliff sides and little harbors, the towns are little oases in a vast wilderness of flora.
We stayed in Vernazza, the fourth town and one of the most touristy. We had a great room on the fourth floor of an apartment building that sat right on the harbor. The apartment had advertised an ocean view. That’s a bit of a stretch. If you leaned all the way out of the window, risking life and limb, you could sort of hear the ocean, but that was about it. Regardless, it was a lovely room, and we were very close to the water. Down at the shore, people swam in the warm Mediterranean, sunbathed on flat rocks near the water, and ate gelato all night long.
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| Our "ocean" view |
The first word that comes to mind as we remember Vernazza is expensive! Our dinner during our first night cost us about 1.5 to 2 times the amount that previous dinners had cost. We are seriously running out of money. We don’t know how to make it more obvious to you guys. Please donate what you can. Don’t make us beg. In any event, dinner was delicious. But all dinners are delicious over here, so a dinner really has to stand out to impress us. Amy had a fresh seafood ravioli; Shaffer had spicy pasta done all’arabiatta. This just indicates that it is spicy, but we prefer the literal translation: Angry pasta. Most notable was the bread. Bread over here is pretty bland, probably because they don’t pump it full of the unhealthy crap that we do. This bread was different: It tasted of salt water. Yummm!
The next day was our hiking day. The Cinque Terre is connected by about 5 miles of hiking trails. Some of the trails are fairly benign, others are excruciating. (Can you guess which trails we ended up taking?) Much of the hikes take place on narrow dirt paths, up and down hills, with terrific vistas, and steep drops should your feet wander. We Oregonians knew we were up to the challenge.
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| Hiking to Corniglia |
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| Half way to Corniglia |
We had planned to hike from Vernazza to the neighboring town of Corniglia: About a 90 minute hike and rated as the second most difficult hike in the Cinque Terre. With Cappuccinos and Croissants to fortify us, we set out. It was a gorgeous hike, with the clear blue ocean below us, and fantastic vegetation all around. 90 minutes later we reached Corniglia. Less touristy, more gritty, and more agricultural. On the way in we saw an ingenious tram used to collect grapes from the terraces that stretch all along the coastline. We were getting quite hungry, and searched out some food. Amy wanted to stop and get some pizza, but none of the pizzerias were open yet. So she reluctantly allowed Shaffer to pick the place where we would get lunch; it would end up being one of the best decisions of her life.
This would be our first, and sadly last, experience with foccacia, which is a local favorite in this region. At a little hole-in-the wall bar, we each purchased a foccacia sandwich: Salami for Shaffer; tomato and mozzarella for Amy. Our host then warmed up these sandwiches in a George-Foreman-Grill-like contraption, for about a minute. Afterwards, he slathered warm olive oil on top, and sprinkled the sandwiches with herbs: Rosemary, pepper, oregano, parsley and salt. We think these might have been the best things we ate all trip. Shaffer just seems to have a knack for sniffing out great food in the unlikeliest of places: He thinks he inherited the trait from his Dad, Bob Claridge, whose life-motto is: “There are two kinds in the world: The quick, and the hungry.”
We had originally just planned to hike to Corniglia, but after the foccacia sandwiches, we felt as if our vitality knew no limits (famous last words). So, we struck off towards the next town, Manarola…only to discover that the trail between Corniglia and Manarola had been washed out. No matter, we caught a train and headed towards the southernmost of the 5 cities: Rio Maggiore.
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| Rio Maggiore |
We checked out the town of Rio Maggiore a bit, before beginning our hike to Manarola. We would write a bit more about each town if we found them more distinct. Locals, and guide books, claim that they are, and we believe them. However, the differences are a bit hard for the foreigner to distinguish. By way of analogy, every good Oregonian knows that the coastal towns of Seaside, Cannon Beach, and Astoria are very different: A tourist trap, an artsy town, and a working coastal city respectively. However, to the non-Oregonian they probably seem very similar: In all of the towns salmon is king, salt water taffies are all the rage, and all towns are populated by roughly the same mix of artists, retirees, fisherman, loggers, and certifiably crazy people. Such was our experience in the Cinque Terre: We trust that all of the towns are really very different, but had trouble discerning those differences.
The “hike” between Rio Maggiore and Manarola is called Via Dell’Amore: The street of love. (Tim Costa, who believes in no such thing as love, would have avoided it entirely). It is certainly not a hike. Paved in its entirety, it is a scenic and romantic stroll on the side of a cliff, overlooking some of the most beautiful ocean that we had ever seen. We stopped mid way to affix a padlock to the chain-link fence: A local custom. We then arrived in Manarola. We took a lovely hike up to a terraced vineyard, and enjoyed the stroll. Down below in the harbor, people swam and sunbathed. Several young ladies were even sunbathing topless. At least that’s what Amy says. Shaffer wouldn’t know. He didn’t see any topless sunbathers. He swears he didn’t. After the vineyard walk we decided we wanted one more walk of the Via Dell’Amore, so we headed back to Rio Maggiore.
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| View from Via Dell'Amore |
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| Shaffer installing our padlock |
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| Vineyard in Manarola |
Of course, no blog entry would be complete unless accompanied by some minor catastrophe. We intended to take the train from Rio Maggiore back to Vernazza. Somehow we boarded the wrong train: One that did not stop in Vernazza and took us instead to Monterossa Del Mare, the northernmost town in the Cinque Terre. Monterossa is a beach town: Home to sun goddesses such as Sophie Kamesar and Jen Zec Reed. We checked out the main drag, did some people watching down at the beach, and had a couple of 66s. (Beers). We could have just caught the train back to Vernazza, but instead decided to walk it. We’re young right? The hike is 2 hours long, and listed as the most grueling that the Cinque Terre has to offer.
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| Monterossa beaches |
Yep. There was one point near the beginning where we climbed stairs for 15 straight minutes. No joke. The trail was all of 16 inches wide, and we were in the direct sun for most of it. The entire hike undulated: You would go downhill steeply for a minute, only to climb more stairs to reach your original elevation moments later. To add insult to injury, Amy got stung by a bee. The hike’s redeeming quality was its beauty: Breathtaking panoramas of ocean, cliffs, and small towns nestled in between. When we weren’t gasping for breath from the hike, we were gasping for breath from the view.
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| The hike back to Vernazza |
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| Big man on a little trail |
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| STAIRS! |
We made it eventually, and hastened to find some food. Wary of the expensive dinner of the night before, we decided to go for a cheap alternative: Pizza. We found a take-out joint for cheap, and ordered a pizza with sausage, onions and bell peppers as the toppings. What we got (as we discovered back in our room), was a pizza with eggplant, mushrooms and bell peppers. And then Shaffer spilled the pizza all over his clothes. Even that couldn’t spoil what was a magnificent day in the Cinque Terre. Even our catastrophe worked out in the end: It enabled us to see all five of the Cinque Terre towns; we had originally planned on only seeing two. We wish we could have stayed longer, but we had a date with the Adriatic to keep.
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| Back home in Vernazza |
Up Next: St. Anthony, cheap meals (finally), mean priests, college graduates, bad beer, trains, and an oboe: Padua.
Arrivederci!
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