Advertisement
Published: December 11th 2006
Cinque Terre
Riomaggiore: Where the valley meets the harbourMatt:
One of the most important lessons my mother ever taught me as a child was to be persistent: if I didn’t succeed at something at first, I should try again until I did. It’s not without irony then that this valuable advice should come back to bite my mother as I launched a second attempt at wiping her out, this time in Italy.
My reattempt started with the familiar Friday afternoon dash home from work for some last minute packing and dash off to a London airport. Knowing how my mother hates to rush, I had checked with BA and found that our flight to Pisa was delayed by two hours. This meant that we had plenty of time to relax, make ourselves some sandwiches and catch an episode of Will & Grace before making our way leisurely to Gatwick. Unfortunately though, as Ed and I kicked back to a second episode and became more and more relaxed, my mother (who was anxiously gazing at the clock) appeared to be getting more and more stressed. Faced with a harassed and thin lipped mother, we cut short our tuna sandwiches and departed in a rush.
Because of the
Pisa looking fabulous
(It's just good lighting) delay to our flight, we didn’t arrive in Pisa until around midnight and headed to the taxi rank along with everyone else on our plane. After 20 minutes of waiting at the end of a Boeing 737 sized queue that had not got any shorter, we began to suspect that Pisa taxis were either were scared of the dark or scared of British tourists. And so - loaded up with three suitcases, two backpacks and one mother in desperate need of a sleep - we took our very small and simple map of the very large and complex city and began to walk in the general direction of our hotel.
Like the Pied Piper, we soon found ourselves followed by a group of equally frustrated tourists, who had obviously mistaken our desperation for a sense of direction. After a while though, our band of followers began to loose faith and wander off into the darkness after working out we had no idea where we were going (evidenced by frequent rotations of our totally useless map). In the end, we were on our own again with not a taxi (or leaning tower) in sight.
Thankfully and after what seemed
Mum, me and Pisa
Just plain (the town, not mum) like hours, we managed to find a cab who took us to our hotel for possibly the shortest stay in history (alas it wasn’t the type of establishment where the rates were based on the hour).
The following morning after breakfast, we headed with a little trepidation back onto the streets of Pisa for a walk along the river. Although famous for one of the greatest of architectural mistakes in history (alongside Blues Point Tower and Star City Casino), the remainder of the city is understated to the point of being just plain. It is almost as if after making such an embarrassing blunder in the 16th Century, the city’s designers gave up on gratuitous beauty and resorted instead for Soviet style, risk-free function over form.
Surrounded by general ordinariness, it is therefore not unsurprising that Campo dei Miracoli with its cathedral, baptistery and tower remains magical. This is despite the hoards of tourists, armies of souvenir vendors and rows and rows of buses that also call it home.
After an hour of staring, we headed for the train station for the one and a half hour journey to our next stop.
Since we first heard
Pisa
The point where plain meets picturesque about it, Cinque Terra or ‘Five Lands’ has been close to the top of Ed and my list of must see places. Built along a spectacular stretch of the north Italian coastline, the lands are actually tiny villages, each with their own personality and atmosphere. Originally home to fishermen and farmers, they are individually gorgeous and collectively breathtaking.
Our stay for the next two nights in the gorgeous little town of Monterosso was an amazing eighteenth century farmhouse nestled in a lemon orchard with views over the mountains and the sea that had been 'newly renovated'. Unfortunately the recent renovation had not made it past the front gate.
Our farmhouse was perched on the top of a pile of rubble that extended as far as the eye could see. Apparently when first constructed in the eighteenth century, this collection of rocks and cement resembled a set of 200 stairs. Alas, any resemblance was lost on us: especially on my mother who, along with rushing, doesn’t do stairs at the best of times. After panting her way to the top and being placed on an intravenous drip of red wine, she soon began carefully planning her two days in
Cinque Terre so as to minimise trips up the pile. Ed and I left her to it and went to the beach instead.
That night we headed down into the town for a dinner of seafood followed by gelato and coffee on the terrace. We ended up finishing the night with several cocktails at an American Bar, which seemed to make the climb up the stairs to the lemon orchard that much easier.
The following day, we staggered down into town to catch the ferry east along the coast and past the four other villages.
We got off at the easternmost village of Riomaggiore, which is constructed around a single main road built at the bottom of small valley. The road, enveloped by hundreds of tiny multicoloured houses, winds its way down to a small harbour. In a word it is magic.
From there we started the walk along Lovers’ Lane (which apart from the train and ferry is the only practical link between the five lands), to the second town of Manorola.
It was at this point that we discovered that along with rushing and stairs, mum isn’t too fond of walking either. She
Monterosso
The lemon orchard is up the top (somewhere) decided to find a bar and let Ed and I wander Lovers’ Lane alone (maybe she’s just a romantic).
From Manorola, the standard of the pathway took a noticeable nosedive. From paved and signposted, it quickly deteriorated to rocky and random. To top it all off, at the end of the path there was also a set of stairs that made the pile of rubble at our lemon orchard look like a step ladder. And as if to prove the point, when we reached the summit to arrive in the third town of Corniglia, we came across a group of people standing around a man lying motionless in the middle of the road. He was turning blue and his wife was standing over him screaming ‘Roberto! Non faccia questo a me!’ (‘Roberto! Don’t do this to me’). It ended up putting a bit of dampener on Corniglia (despite being as beautiful as the other three villages) and we decided to head back to Montorosso. Just as we arrived at the train station, the rescue helicopter arrived to (hopefully) winch poor Roberto to health.
For the rest of the afternoon Ed and I hired a kayak to explore some
Steps to our hotel
(They got worse further up) of the caves along the rugged coast line while mum hunted us like a paparazzi with her camera. Unfortunately, mum’s eyes aren’t what they used to be and she ended up taking photos of the wrong group of kayakers. All up, we had a great time and mum feels lucky she wasn’t arrested for being a pervert.
The following day we clambered down the stairs for the final time and headed toward the station for the next part of our Italian adventure. Along the way, we called in at the local post office to buy some stamps for our postcards. It was at this point that I received the SMS from my brother telling me that Steve Irwin had died.
Now don’t get me wrong - I’m as much a Bindy boosting, Bob dangling Crocodile Hunter loving Aussie as the next guy, but I wasn’t so much sad as I was shocked. I immediately turned around to give mum the news. An American backpacker who was standing in front of us overhead and confirmed the basic facts: sting ray, Queensland, dead.
She hadn’t really managed to get much further than the dead part when tears began to
Mum at the Lemon Orchard
She wasn't moving... Period! well up in mum’s eyes. Within seconds she had run out of the post office sobbing to be comforted by Ed in the relatively empty Main Street of Montorosso.
Meanwhile back in the post office, the poor American backpacker wondered what she had said. Had she just broke the news of Steve’s death to one of his relatives; Or was this the standard reaction of crazy Australians to the news. Despite me explaining that it was probably just hormones, I think her blog would tell a different story.
All up, the Cinque Terre was as fabulously beautiful as we had hoped. Despite the piles of rubble, the odd heart attack and a camera filled with photos of other people kayaking, we had an awesome time and will definitely be back.
Perhaps the most surprising thing was how well mum had coped. Up until she received the news of the death of her beloved Croc Hunter, the only sign that we had that she was approaching wipe out was the odd groan and thin lipped moment. I think she definitely had a great time!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.058s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 8; qc: 26; dbt: 0.0334s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Mum McCarron
non-member comment
I'm Good For a Laugh
Hi Guys, I sure you only took me along for a laugh, I don't care though I hope to give you lots more laugh's along the way. xxxxxxx