Cinque Terre

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After my return from the Tuscany day trip, I met up with the friends I had made in the hostel in the last couple of days, and we decided that we should get a few bottles of wine and chill out for the night on the rooftop terrace. A grand plan! We bought the wine from a man in a local off-licence, who after we’d bought it, told us to hide the bottles in our bags as he wasn’t allowed to sell alcohol past 9 o’clock! So we surreptitiously smuggled the wine back into the hostel, and sat down to open it, only to remember that wine in central Europe never opens by screw top. Bugger!



But it’s ok! – because I had brought the 12 piece multitool set given to me by my brother-in-law, Nick, for fixing things and for possible self-defence!........... this tool has literally everything you could wish for apart from a corkscrew! What the fuck, Nick!?! That’s the most important tool there is!! You have a lot to answer for!! ? So instead we stabbed it with various implements, including (and breaking) my hair comb (also packed for self-defence reasons), a paperclip, a knife, some pliers…….in the end we gave up and just pleaded with the bar staff until they gave in and opened it for us.



The bar staff agreed to open it, on the basis that we wouldn’t drink it on the premises, so we had to sneak off back into the streets like chavs with our plastic wine glasses. This was my last night in Florence and I had an early start to get to Levanto the next morning, so I had intended to get an early night. I’m glad I didn’t! At about 2am, one of the group went into her hostel room for her cigarettes, and a minute later, the whole building’s firm alarms had gone off. We thought she had been too desperate to wait to get outside, but she came out looking confused and saying (in her irish accent) “I didn’t feckin’ do anyting!”. I might have been pissed off if I was woken up for a fire door being opened at 2am, but instead I was quite enjoying myself being a street-dwelling wino! You see, early nights are overrated!



Once the wine had run out, I took myself off to sleep, and set my alarm for 6.30 to get myself on a 7:45 train. It was entirely unbeknown to me, that putting your phone on low-battery mode to conserve power, means that it completely ignores your alarm request…hence me waking up at 7-bastard-15! Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiittttt!!!!!!! If I didn’t catch this direct train, the only possibility was for me to take a train with 5 bloody changes to get to the same place! Well shit to that! I hadn’t packed TP with any of my stuff, so I spent five minutes literally stuffing it with handfuls of belongings – no packing method whatsoever! I changed into whatever clothes were the first to hand, checked I hadn’t forgotten anything, checked out at reception, and ran to the train station! I arrived with three minutes to spare, and sincerely wished I had used just 30 extra seconds to brush my teeth/ hair before running. Seriously, how many times do I have to look like a complete skank on this trip?!?



I had originally intended to spend three nights in one of the Cinque Terre towns on the Italian coast, (which are literally five towns huddled together with beautiful coloured houses on the hillsides and harbours, which seem to fall down the cliffs) however when I tried to book my next hostel while in Florence, I realised that pretty much every single hostel/hotel in all of the five towns was booked up, or wanted to charge about 200 euros per night! After searching the internet for at least an hour, I found a hostel in Levanto (close to the Cinque Terre towns) that wasn’t on the main booking websites, and I called the reception hoping to crap that they could speak English! They did! – I asked about their vacancies, and they said they had only one bed left and for only two nights. Well! – you take what you can!



So I got to Levanto on the train, and walked to my hostel, which turns out to be a converted hospital, monastery, and college! It was basic at best, but I treat all hostels as a place to rest your head while you see the beauty that surrounds them. It’s a bonus if you’re not repulsed by the state of the bathrooms!



I spent the rest of that afternoon being rudely awoken while trying to have a kip on the beach! I had settled myself on a sun lounger, only to be told an hour later that it was booked by someone else; then I moved onto the sand, only to be told that the beach was private and owned by the restaurant above it so I couldn’t stay there! I’m starting to think they didn’t want me there! I’d managed to catch a couple of hours of sun and sleep anyway, so I moved from the beach into the town, just in time for dinner. I found the Italian version of a chippy! - Errrr just without the chips. They sell cones of fresh battered seafood and vegetables, and they’re delicious! I had a mixed cone of everything with calamari, vegetables, mussels, pawns etc. and wandered about the town. I went to a bar to try the local wine (don’t tell me you don’t drink this much wine when you’re in Italy – liars!) and then went to bed.



I had been researching what to do in Levanto and Cinque Terre, and I had a plan for the morning, to wake up early and do the walk from Levanto to Monterosso al Mare (the first of the five towns). So I got up at 7, had breakfast, and set off for the walk. The internet had called it a ‘hike’, but people say hike all the time when they really mean ‘relaxed coastal walk’. Well this time they really did mean hike! The walk was apparently 7km and should take 3 hours. The first 20 minutes of the walk was pure, unrelenting, uphill calf torture! I’ve been walking everywhere for five weeks now, and I had cow calves to start with, but Jesus H Christ this was steep! For two hours it didn’t stop, it only teased you with 2 minute flat sections before climbing upwards again. AND when you got to the top of a flight of steps or steep hill, the directions would take you downhill for 15 minutes before you had to go up again! The walk went through forest and rocky paths, and I let other people pass me who had decent walking shoes and those hiking sticks that I imagine do absolutely bugger all! You must remember that I still had only one pair of shoes, my dog-shit, mutilated, Croatian sandals – so there were multiple times where I nearly slipped on my arse skidding and scrambling down chunks of rock. For all my complaining though, the views from the top of this mountain over the coast were absolutely worth it! I was in front of a small group of Italians, and when they reached the top, one of them actually called out ‘Mamma Mia!’ and wiped the sweat from his brow….Brilliant! ?



I arrived in Monterosso at about midday, and bought a seafood linguine at a local restaurant for lunch. I had a little wander about the town, and then bought a ‘Cinque Terre Card’ from the train station, which allows you as many train trips as you like in one day between the five towns. I saw all five towns that day, and they are very beautiful, although incredibly full of tourists! The attraction of the Cinque Terre towns is the harbour of each. The towns don’t hold that much in historic value, so everyone flocks to the beauty spots, and it’s hard to move around any of the towns due to the volume of people. I learned later that I had visited on an Italian bank holiday, which may explain things. Maybe it was lucky I had to stay in Levanto, as the other towns, although beautiful, were far too busy for me!



I had arranged to meet my friends Phil & Lynne the next day, who are also travelling around Europe, but in the comfort of their plush motorhome! (Not envious at all! ?). They were just around the coast of Italy from me in Spotorno, so I dropped in for a visit on my way to Nice in France. I had to change trains at Genova to get to Spotorno, and while waiting at my platform for the train, I am actually really sodding pleased to say that I understood enough of an announcement in Italian to inform me that the train was arriving at a different platform! I ran down the subway to the next platform, jumped on the train and asked a woman if this was the train to Ventimiglia (via Spotorno) – she said yes - before the train doors shut. Thank you Keele University Short Course Italian! You saved my butt!!



When I arrived in Spotorno, Phil was waiting for me with his scooter! He has fully adopted the Italian way of living by travelling everywhere looking tanned and cool on his nippy two-wheeler! He expertly strapped TP onto the back with some bungee cords, gave me a helmet (excellent foresight there!) then we both hopped on away to the camp site. It was BRILLIANT!!! I have never ridden on the back of a scooter before but it was so much fun!! I have to admit that to start with I was absolutely crapping myself, and gripped the handle bars at the back as if my life depended on it, but once I got used to it, it was great!!



We got to the motorhome, and Lynne made us all a lovely lunch – thank you again! And then we saw the beautiful coastline there. After a good chat, Phil took me back on the scooter all along the Italian coast to Finale Ligure. We must have only been doing about 30mph, but it felt like we were doing about 70! I was grinning and laughing the whole time. That is definitely a big tick off the bucket list right there! ………………….I WANT A SCOOTER!!!! ??



We had a beer in the town before I got on the train to Nice for my next stop!

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Comments

[Jean Foster]

Florence
Once again excellent x