Hiking the Cinque Terra
Once I got the tram, train, and plane to Milan Malpensa, I then took a bus to Milan Centrale, where I took a train to Genoa, and waited for Lija and Sandi to fly in from London to Genoa and bus into the city.
We met Sandi while we were travelling around Wales in April. She’s a lot of fun, and has a similar travel mindset to us – in other words, a pleasure to travel with and someone I wouldn’t need to throttle along the way!
We took the train to Vernazza, one of the five towns that make up the Cinque Terra. It’s a unique piece of Italy that was man-made. The surrounding waters and national park are all protected land, and you have to pay to come through the land. There are no new buildings because where there are no towns, there are gardens, grape crops for wine and other sustainable projects. It is a 30 minute train journey between Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, Riomaggiore and La Spezia; or you can do what we did and hike it!
We stayed in a really nice hotel room in Vernazza. The buildings are all different coloured terracotta and yellows, natural colours, with green window shutters to keep the heat and wind out but let the fresh air in. Vernazza sits on the ocean, with a small port the hourly ferry comes in and out through, and lots of cafes and restaurants with an ocean view. The mamas sit on chairs all together and chat away, while the old men sit with their dogs. You get to know the locals quite easily by their dogs. One man had his Pomeranian every day at the same cafe. Stray cats also roam the town as they wish, watching the fishermen bring in the fresh fish to sell to the restaurants for that night’s dinner, waiting to pounce for an offcut or two.
It was already quite late by the time we got in, so after we had wandered a bit, our choice of dinner for night one was, of course, a freshly-made wood-fired oven pizza. They were delicious. I had the capricciossa but this was so much more than mushrooms. It also had ham, artichokes (which the Italians write as hartichokes on the English menus!) and olives. Dessert was naturally a gelati, we may have had a few of those over the next few days, in fact, lunch mostly consisted of a gelati hehe. After my 24 hour journey with minimal sleep – I had fallen asleep after I put my belt on the plane and didn’t wake up till the captain said we were landing, and then fell asleep for a good part of the train journey from Milan to Genoa!!! – I had begun lolling on the table, so we headed back to sleep. There’s no need for sheets in an Italian summer, but we did have a ceiling fan, which was good.
On Saturday we got up early enough, with the help of the two town church bells that begin ringing at unmentionable hours in the morning. Lija bounced out of bed getting ready, while Sandi and I lay there going “Do we really have to walk so far today?”! Lija’s motivation soon enough moved us, and rucksacks ready with towels and bathers for the end congratulatory swim, plus water, sunscreen, first aid kit and various other bits and pieces, we set off. Not before a cappuccino, and some fresh fruit for the day.
We bought our three-day park pass, and headed back one stop to Monterosso. Ah, the people lying on the beach beds sunning themselves already. But no, we headed east, towards the start of the path. The first two towns are the most difficult. From Monterosso to Vernazza it is two hours and 3kms. There were a lot of people on the paths going both ways, and in several places we had to cling to trees and along cliff tops to let people pass. We had huge stone steps to climb, wooden bridges to cross (don’t ask about the vertigo) and vineyards to go through. It was nice to eventually make it back to Vernazza.
We stopped off for the toilet, more fruit and water, and then did the next leg – the longest and most mountainous – to Corniglia. In all it took us 5 hours and they say it’s 9kms, but it feel like more. Manarola had a nice town, but we were disappointed when we got to Riomaggiore. The beach there was not at all nice. Back on the train to Vernazza and we were straight in the water. This is where I ended up cutting my heel quite deeply on a rock and bleeding everywhere. I went back to our room to patch myself up, turns out the first aid kit was a handy addition, and limped back down to the others who were sunning on some rocks.
Tonight we had a nice dinner. We went to a little restaurant in town, and I had creamy prawn salad to begin, and then we all had spaghetti with mussels and clams. It was really nice and filling, and the gelati topped it off perfectly.
On Sunday, after being woken up by all the bells for morning mass, we headed over to Monterosso again, where the anchovy museum is. They don’t make them there anymore, but we watched a short video on how they are made, and fully respect the price of the dear anchovy fillet now, and got a few taste testers as well. We bought a jar of anchovy pesto to go with dinner. We were going to stay at the beach in Monterosso, but the majority is lined with beach umbrellas and chairs that you have to pay ridiculous amounts for – 27 euros for three of us to use one umbrella and three chairs. So we headed back to Vernazza and spent the day sunbaking and swimming there.
Dinner was all bought from the deli in the morning before it closed for Sunday business. We had a feast of salami, baby cherry tomatoes, baby mozzarella, chilli olives and fresh bread to go with our anchovy paste, plus a bottle of white wine. The plan was going to be a picnic by the water, but the wind had got so blowy that we decided to eat in, and then head out for gelati. Again. When it’s so hot that you only want to walk around in your underwear then a gelati is the only reasonable answer to that predicament. Or at least that’s what it seems at the time.
This morning I said goodbye to Lija and Sandi, as they headed back to Genoa and then London, but I caught the train to Pisa. Just to see that leaning tower. And it’s still there, and it’s still leaning. The tower was the exact opposite side of town to the train station, so that was a fun walk (not!) but luckily I put my bag in the luggage hold for only 3 euros. There’s not really much else to see in Pisa, and the swarms of tourists after the weekend in Cinque Terra was thoroughly off putting, so I headed back to the station and got the next train to Rome. This is where I am now, sitting on the train, fuming after the conductor just fined me 5 euros for not stamping my ticket, which the man in the ticket office didn’t tell me to do and blast it if I saw these little yellow stamp boxes. I haven’t had to do it so far in Italy and no other conductor has told me so. Money-making bastards.
Tags: Travel
marzipan_mad
Leave a Reply