Day 6 - A Quiet day in Cinque Terre

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This morning we had a chance for a little sleep in, and today was another "relaxed start", which basically means we don't leave until after 8:30AM. This is a feature of Insight Travel, and something I had trouble understanding in the beginning. Since I booked this tour under Grand European Tours, they had tours broken up by pace as in Leisurely, Comfortable, and Active Pace. After a discussion with Russ and Julie at dinner tonight, I realized that they had the same incorrect definition of Comfortable, Leisurely, and Active as I originally had. I thought that this had something to do with physical activity, and that Leisurely and Comfortable, would have less walking, less strenuous exercise, etc. and that Active would have lots of walking, steep hills, and lots of physical activity. But actually,these terms relate to the speed at which we travel from town to town, Comfortable trips tend to stay in the hotel for 2 nights at a time, have "relaxed starts", and visit close by towns. Active tours cover much more ground in the same time. When we initially booked this tour, the Active Italy tour covered many more cities and many more miles on the bus, so we picked the Comfortable Pace to not feel so rushed. The physical activity on both is about the same.We're very glad we picked the Comfortable pace as this seems perfect for us, and the physical activity is perfect also. This trip also seems to have just the right amount of free time in each city.

Back to today's tour, both Jody and I read the itinerary description, and listened to Anna's description last night and didn't quite know what to expect. We talked to some fellow passengers and they had no idea either. It was something about Cinque Terre and Five Lands or Five Villages, but we just decided to hold on and wait to see what it was. After a quick breakfast, we boarded the coach, Pancrazio, our driver headed north down the road for about a couple hours toward the town of La Spezia. As we were getting close to La Spezia we made a stop at another rest stop, This time we had the forethought to go ahead and pickup a couple of Coke Zero while we had the chance. While we were there, Cindy, a nice lady from Portland, Oregon spotted some Ketchup Pringles. She offered them around, but they didn't sound too appetizing. Pringles seems to be a thing in Italy, and they are everywhere, and they have all kinds of bizarre flavors. Once we arrived in La Spezia, we picked up Paula, our local guide. Since she is half Italian and half Canadian, she had very little accent and was easy to understand.

La Spezia is a very modern city, most remnants of the medieval town were demolished to make way for the city which boasts a large shipping port, a Naval Base, and even a cruise ship terminal. There was a Royal Caribbean ship docked as we went past. La Spezia did not look anything like the cities of the last few days. It was stores and strip malls and looked basically like most any American city except that the high-rise buildings had more residential units. It was not very picturesque at all. Paula explained some of the history of La Spezia, but quickly turned to the story of Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre, or Five Lands, is a series of 5 small terraced towns, Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and Monterosso. These are primarily wine growing towns that have been around since the 12th century or earlier. They were built on the side of the mountain near the sea, and the mountainsides were terraced to allow crops to be grown. The towns were mostly cut off from the outside world as there were no real roads and access was limited to the sea. There is still very little road access, but train tracks and tunnels were added to connect the 5 towns to the rest of the world.

Our plan was to view 3 of the towns, Riomaggiore, Corniglia, and Vernazza, and to actually visit Manarola and Monterosso. As the bus headed past the town of Riomaggiore on a high windy road, Paula explained some of the history of Cinque Terre. The terraces are held up with over 4000 miles of dry rock wall, built over the centuries to allow farming. Some of these terraces and a small monorail vehicle that runs up and down the hills to facilitate harvesting of the grapes. Most of the wine from Cinque Terre is for local consumption as there is not enough volume for export. Once past the town of Rionaggiore, the road ended at the top of Manarola. It was time to get off the bus, hookup the Vox communicators and have Paula lead us down the hill to Manarola. At the top of the hill is a parking lot for the cars of the local residents who must also walk down the hill to access their homes. There were a couple of cars in Manarola, but they were by special permit as it is basically a pedestrian town.

The road leading down the side of the mountain was very steep, and we were glad we weren't going to need to climb back up. The buildings were very old, but we could peek inside a few and they were very modern on the inside. According to Paula, one of the things that is happening in Manarola is that with the advent of AirBnB, residents of Manarola are buying homes in the more modern La Spezia, renovating their old home in Manarola, and renting them out on AirBnB. I hope this doesn't destroy the character of the town, and it is a really beautiful mountainside town. When we reached the bottom, there was a small harbor and a beach with lots of people swimming in the Mediterranean. A couple of the passengers dipped their feet in the water, but Abigail, who is only 16 and traveling with her mom, decided to go for a swim. She looked like she was having a blast. We had about 20 minutes to explore at the base of Manarola, while we were waiting for the water taxi. Paula suggested we hold off buying souvenirs until Monterosso when we would have more time.

The water taxi arrived, and we were the first ones on the boat. Paula showed us the best spots on the Water taxi to take pictures, so we all camped out on our favorite spot. The Water Taxi runs continuously between Manarola and Monterosso with an additional stop in Vernazza. As the Water Taxi left, we were able to catch our first glimpse of Corniglia, the third Cinque Terre town. Corniglia does not have a port, so the Water Taxi can only pass by Corniglia without stopping. The next town of Cinque Terre is Vernazza, and the Water Taxi made it's first stop to let some passengers out and let some new passengers on. It looked very similar to the other towns of the Cinque Terre. We just stayed on the boat as a few people left and what seemed to be an endless line of people boarded. Finally the boarding line let up, and we headed out for Monterosso. After getting off the Water Taxi, Paula led us into town, pointed out some of the more interesting sights, and a couple of good restaurant suggestions for lunch and let us off with a couple of hours of free time.

Jody and I weren't particularly hungry so we decided to skip lunch, get a couple of Coke Zero, and check out the shops. Jody found a pink linen top she really liked, and we picked up a couple of t-shirts along the way. We also realized that Jody had forgotten her flip-flops at the previous hotel, so we set about finding replacements. At first, all we could find were expensive ones, running from 25 euros to 45 euros, but finally I spied a cheap turquoise pair for 6.50 euros that were just perfect. We checked out the local 13th century church, but more interestingly there was an old unrestored church taken over by the Societas Mortis, a local group dedicated to making people comfortable with death, and making sure the indigent could be buried with dignity. Inside the church, some of the internal cherub statuary had been replaced with skeletons and skull decorations had been added in several locations. All-in-all, an interesting looking building.

The town is really small, so it didn't take long to visit most of the shops. We didn't really have a lot of interest in visiting the beach as the Italian beaches aren't really on pace with our local Florida beaches. The beaches hear are very small sand rocky. Going to the beach here involves access to a changing room, a deck chair, and an umbrella, all of which costs about 50 euro. So with an hour of free time left, we decided it was time for a gelato. But as we were ready to pick out our flavors, we decided that maybe a light snack would hit the spot, so we went off in search of a light lunch. We headed over to the first restaurant that Paula had recommended which only has about 6 tables, but as luck would have it, someone was getting up just as we arrived, so we sat down to look at a menu. Many things looked good, but it was just to hot for a heavy pasta dish, so we settled for a small salami pizza and a couple of Coke Zero. It didn't take long, but the strange thing is that the restaurant does not cut the pizza. They did cut the whole pizza in half, giving half to me and half to Jody, but we were given a knife and fork to cut out halves ourselves. It was a little strange, but we figured it out and went with it.

Of course now that lunch was done, that wasn't going to stop us from gelato, so even though Jody could only handle a single scoop of caramel, I still had room for my 4 scoops of Caramel, Biscotti, Expresso, and Vanilla. I didn't want to miss out on gelato! By now it was getting to the end of our free time, and ready to head back to the hotel. But rather than just retracing our steps from Monterosso to Manarola and climbing the huge hill back to the bus, the plan was to get on the train in Monterosso and ride it all the way back to Santa Margherita. Taking public transportation as a group can always be a challenge, so Anna got the tickets, and Paula stuck around to make sure we got on the right train which, of course, was running late. Suddenly, it was due in just a few minutes when the track was changed. We had to scramble from Track 1, down into the station, over to Track 2 and reassemble to wait for the train. Trains in Italy have assigned seating, so we were given tickets with our seat assignments. Evidently, Italians don't always follow seat assignments, and sit wherever they want. So we got on the train, couldn't find our assigned seats, and ended up sitting wherever we could. Of course as others got on the train, they insisted we were sitting in their seats, and by the end, about a half dozen of us were standing up as the train pulled into Santa Margherita. Outside the station, Pancrazio met us with the cool air-conditioned coach, and we were at the hotel in about 10 minutes.

It had been a hot afternoon, and we had a couple of hours before dinner, so we stopped at the hotel desk and picked up a couple of pool towels and headed to the pool. The water was great! And after about an hour in the pool we were totally refreshed. We cleaned up for dinner, and headed down to the bar for a couple of drinks. We met up with Russ and Julie, John and Inga and had a great time waiting for 7:00. At 7:00 we hopped back on the bus for a short ride over to Trattoria S. Siro restaurant to check out the local cuisine. The food was delicious, with local specialties like green bean and potato pie, pasta with sausage, and local fish and potatoes with tomato sauce. It was all great, with a delicious apple tart for dessert. The food on this trip has always been awesome!

By now it was time to head back to the room, write this blog, and get ready for tomorrow. In the morning we have a "relaxed start" at 9:00 as we head over to Lake Maggiore. The plan was to take a boat trip to Isola Bella in the early afternoon, but because it's been so hot, we will have some free time at the hotel, before heading over to Isola Bella at 4:00. It should be great!

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