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Published: August 7th 2012
Watchin the waves
Nena, Matteo, Helena and Matteo.Thanks to the rail strike (apparently a common occurence in Italy) we arrived a bit late. After some confusion over transport, our host (Matteo) picked us up from the train station and drove us back out to his place which was just out of La Spezia. There were already another couple of couch surfers in the (small, two bedroom) unit, and things got even busier when a larger group of five Estonian couch surfers arrived. They ended up camping on the front deck! Matteo's housemate Andrea cooked up an awesome spaghetti pasta which we munched into, before some other friends came over to visit and we sat around chatting on the deck for a few hours.
The next day we found out at 7am that Matteo's flat was next to a church...with loud bells. The two original couch surfers left early, while the rest of us had a more relaxed breakfast. Matteo and a couple of friends of his (Helena and her brother, also called Matteo) took us along to Framura which is on the coast north of Cinque Terre. We then walked to a very small rocky beach (no sand) and went swimming and sun bathing for a few
A crowd
A bunch of Couch Surfers and friends. hours. The water was a really nice temperature, and despite dropping off quite quickly and looking very rough (and having rocks on either side) was actually very easy to swim in. There was no rip or current at all and once you got past where the waves were breaking you just bobbed up and down and didn't drift anywhere. Very safe.
After a while we walked through a long cold tunnel to Levanto which is a town to the south, and ate some delicious and cheap focaccia, and then possibly the cheapest gelato we've yet had (3 euro for 5 scoops and still very good). We then went and sat on the beach there (a dark sandy one) for a few more hours and had a couple of swims. The water was very blue, but looked slightly milky - there was also a lot of rubbish floating in places. It was still a nice swim though.
When we got home Andrea cooked up another fine feast (he had been home studying for an anatomy exam all day) and then a group of us went out for drinks at a local bar. Funnily enough the bar was a "metal"
Blue water
You can see the beach we were on our way to in this photo. bar and was playing Guns and Roses, AC/DC and Iron Maiden at high volume while we were there. On the topic of "funny", we noticed a very common mistake in English in Italy. If an Italian thinks that something will involve having fun, then he calls it "funny". For example: "Let's go to the beach it will be funny". It makes sense in a weird kinda way, but of course the English language being as confusing as it is, it's wrong. We heard it a lot though.
After a bit of a sleep in the next day we jumped on a train to Vernazza in Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre is a series of five small towns which are all linked by walking trails and rail. No cars are allowed in any of the towns - you can park up the road a kilometre or so and walk in, but even then the linking roads are narrow and windy. After a bit of lunch we grabbed a Granita cafe and a Granita Frutta di bosca (berries). A granita is basically a churned up sorbet thing. More icey, but delicious on a hot day. These were down in a Sicillian way
which is with a panna cream on top. So tasty. Vernazza is a beautiful town, and was severely damaged by a flood in October 2011 in which metres of mud and water came down the valley and wiped out large areas. There's some video footage here:
While the main centre is looking much better, as we walked up the road away from the sea the damage was clearly evident. We had decided to walk some of the back walking tracks to Corniglia. Unfortunately we started on the wrong track and things got more confusing. We ended up walking on the road for a few hours which was pretty boring. We ended up really high up at St Bernadino and then attempted to find our way back down. The tracks were pretty eroded and not clearly marked so after a couple of hours we gave up and walked back to St Bernadino and then down the walking track back to Vernazza. This was a pretty beautiful but a steep descent so we got wobbly legs! The views were stunning though! From Vernazza we caught the train to Corniglia where we wandered around till late, grabbed some snacks and a Campari
In the Water
Shortly before our waterproof camera died... Oh well - it was a Tip Shop rescue and worked for a while. Spritzer and then caught the train back to La Spezia where Matteo picked us up again. All other couch surfers had left, so we got to hang out with just Matteo and Andrea which was great as they are a really nice couple of guys.
The next morning we spent a little while on the Internet trying to sort accomodation for Venice and then caught the train to Riomaggiore. It was pretty windy and we found our way around to a nice (rocky) beach which we nicknamed "Ciao" beach. The reason for this was that there was clearly a large number of people who all knew each other, so when anyone arrived or left there was a huge chorus of "ciao!" "Ciao ciao" and so on. Very funny. We decided to splurge on lunch and had a three course menu special, which included an entree fried raviolli, a normal raviolli, a whole bream, and some tira misu washed down with the local sweet wine "Sciacchetrà ". We spent some time walking around the town and then walked along the coast to the next town - Manarola for another bit of rubber-necking before heading home. Another couple of couch surfers had
Vernazza
Colourful little place. arrived while we were out so we all went and did some shopping in a HUGE supermarket before going home to cook up a feast of trophie (a type of hand rolled pasta) and pesto.
We woke up early in the morning in order to meet up with one of Matteo's friends - Julian. Julian was Italian, but had an English mother and had spent every summer in England since he was young. This made his accent sound really strange. When he spoke Italian, he sounded like a local (and the Italians all agreed), but when he switched to English he sounded VERY British without any Italian accent. It was very different to most Italians we have met who have a very strong Italian accent when speaking English. We were meeting Julian this early in the morning so he could take the two of us plus Helena and Matteo out on his boat. Helena was a bit slow getting going as she had a bit of a hangover and had only had 3 hours sleep. These are the things you can do when you're 19! Coming out of the harbour, the first place we saw was Porto Venere which
is a small and colourful place which is having a bit of a boom. Apparently property prices have gone through the roof as it's become more and more popular. As we cruised NW up the coast we saw evidence of many landslides, and also houses perched in the most amazing locations where the only way in is to walk or drive a tractor. We also passed under a Navy helicopter hovering 50m over the ocean, and in the distance Julian spotted a submarine cruising through the waters. Julian explained that just over half of La Spezia's bay is taken up by the navy. We viewed the first four towns of Cinque Terre fromt he sea and took plenty of photos. We didn't bother going to the last town which is Monterosso as it is a bit more like a seaside holiday resort and not as beautiful.
On the way back we stopped in a small isolated bay and had a swim. Julian gave us some masks so we could chase some of the fishes around. There weren't a lot of fish, but it was still really beautiful and clear. We saw a pink coloured jelly fish which we decided
to avoid, and Julian confirmed that they do sting quite badly. We were back in La Spezia by 1:30pm, went home had a shower, lunch and a bit of a doze and then went back in to the city to try and sort out accomodation for Venice which was proving difficult. We had sent out a lot of couch requests but with no luck apart from one guy who could host us for our last night in Venice. We went home and cooked up a cous cous meal for Andrea and then went to sleep fairly early. Another couple of couch surfers came later that night (getting in after midnight) and slept on the floor in the same room as us. It was a pretty crowded house again!
Wednesday morning we took it easy chatting to Matteo for a while in the morning before he dropped us back in the city so we could catch the train to Florence and then to Venice. Along the way we had an amazing view of the marble mountains.
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