The Five Lands

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Saturday 23 August 2008

A lot of travel and hassle and we'd only got to the airport. The only thing worse than catching a bus at 3am, is being told that you don't have a seat on the 3am bus. This was the fate of many of the people waiting for the too-early bus to Stanstead. Apparantly 3am is a popular time to catch a bus as there were only 3 seats available once it actually arrived. Luckily, 2 of those had been reserved for us, so after flashing our receipt to the driver we gained admittance.

Check-in was good, a surprisingly chipper bloke on the desk provided no hassle what-so-ever. To even things out therefore, Stanstead had decided to beef up security again. One guy insisted on weighing our bags and then declared that our carry on liquids were not in the regulation plastic bag. He intoned the liquids rule in solemn terms and gave us reproachful looks for not knowing the rules. I gave him a look of my own and then argued the toss with him, transforming myself into one of those annoying tourists that talk back to the airport officials. The type of person I normally watch with scorn as they attempt to fight a winless battle. He told me it was the rule and had been the rule for the last 2 years. I told him he was wrong, what the real rule was and that I had been travelling every month for the last 2 years, so was pretty darn sure I knew what my rights were. A shadow of doubt passed across his minimum-wage face, however we left it there because our liquids managed to fit into his precious bags and everyone was happy - if a little grumpy from the early start. I'd just like to mention that such confrontation is not usually my style. Perhaps righteous indignation and early starts have a direct correlation. How different would the world have been if the crusades had decided to simply flag it and have sleep in?

First impressions count. Your first impression of a country usually asserts itself when going through passport control. In Italy this consisted of a smallish room jammed full of people waiting for ... what? The guy in our queue appeared to be scrutinizing every stamp on every page of every passport. When he found something (anything) he didn't like (which was often) it resulted in him turning to his computer for clarification, and sometime sot the phone. For one guy the phone was resorted to at least five times. To be honest for the first 5 minutes that we were in the queue the line was moving so slowly that we didn't even realise that there was anyone doing passport control. An investment of 30 minutes saw the line shrink by 3 people. With 15 people still in front of us, Cheri did the math and decided we couldn't wait. A toddler and his bladder made a similar decision all over the floor, which only served to strengthen our resolve. Forfeiting our invested time, we went to the back of another queue. Five minutes later we were through. As we did, I noticed that the chap being "extra thorough" was also about one foot shorter than his (female) colleagues. I'm not saying anything more, I'm just saying...

A short while later, we were exchanging plesantries with our hotelier/landlord Paulo. Then it was time to dump our stuff, have a quick shower and head out to the Cinque Terre. The Cinque Terre are a group of 5 coastal villages (Montorosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore) joined by a series of paths. Given the Italian penchant for clifftop building, and that the area is famous for the terraced vineyards carved from the hillside, you can assume that the paths at times have a closer resemblance to a mountain trail or clifftop ledge than a coastal stroll. In some places the path is so narrow they didn't have room for a safety fence. Its fun to meet people coming the other direction in such places. We were exhausted, but saw this as no reason to let Corniglia miss out on us.

The only village of the five that doesn't have a marina, owing mostly to the fact that it is situated on top of a cliff. That's not to say that the rest of the Cinque Terre aren't clifftop, it's just that this one is more so. Access is via a bus or up 365 stairs if you're cheap. Are we cheap? I like to think that we took advantage of the numerous photo vantage points between the train station and Corniglia.

During our ascent, Italy reaquainted us with two long lost friends: warmth and sunlight. Unfortunately they brought their friends sweat and thirst. Our first port of call was thus a gelateria.

The majority of buildings in Corniglia (as with most villages of the Cinque Terre) are six to seven stories high and built touching each other. Between the buildings run the streets - each no wider than what most would consider an alleyway. During the day, these alley's are cool, dry and shadowy, however to stay within the haven of their confines would stop you from witnessing the breathtaking Visa available at nearly every turn. Winding our way through the alleys eventually led us to a lookout point from which the rest of the village and the surrounding Mediterrainean were both visible.

We were starting to droop even before darkness fell and decided to head back to La Spezia for dinner and an early night as we had planned to do the entire walk (from Montorosso to Riomaggiore) the next day. This is Italy however, or more generally, this is Europe. Try as we might, we could not find an open restaurant, 7:30 being FAR too early for civilised people to start eating.

Sunday 24 August 2008

Breakfast the next day was provided by the hotel - however was not AT the hotel. Instead we had been given vouchers for a bar down the road. Redeeming said voucher at the appropriate bar produced an Italian speech from an old lady, out of which I recognised 'cappuccino'. We ordered 2 and were then Italianed (and hand signaled) into choosing a pastry. Normally I wouldn't comment on breakfast, however in honour of the best coffee I've had in a long time, I felt I should mention that I had the best coffee I've had in a long time.

A Cinque Terre card allows you free usage of the trains and buses to and from the Cinque Terre villages and the right to walk the path. As you buy it you are given a critical look and are informed that the full walk will take five hours. Given that the distance is only 9 km, this gives you a pretty fair idea of how much winding, ascending and descending is involved. The longest walks in the Cinque Terre are between Monterosso and Vernazza and between Vernazza and Corniglia at two hours and 1.5 hours respectively.

Knowing that we wouldn't want to finish our day with these walks, we instead started our day with them. A quick look around Monterosso before hand revealed a gorgeous seaside town, completely swamped with tourists. Slightly larger than the other Cinque Terre and the only village with a long, sandy beach presumably being the reason.

Our first Cinque Terre walk followed a path hewn out of the cliff. The path ascended from the town into the hills following the coastline as it wound around the cliff. Once we had climbed about half way up the hillside, the walk levelled off and more or less followed the coast. At time we were going up or down, sometimes on stairs, sometimes on paths, sometimes on boulders. At times we were walking level, sometimes through shadowed tree covering, somtimes along the tope of dry stonewall. At all times we were awed by the view and the heat.

Two hours of toil rewards you with a clifftop view of Vernazza. Vernazza has no natural beach, however the locals created a breakwater for their marina, the slope of which now has sand. The brightly painted buildings set in, on top and around the rocky cliffs plunging deep into the med were amazing, but we were more interested in water. We had just finished 1.5 litres each on the way here.

Water and snack later, we headed off to Corniglia, though first finding the path out of luck gave me pause to hope for similar luck - or better signage in the villages ahead. In this instance one of the myriad of alleys had a small rusty sign proclaiming itself to be the way to the next village. Cheri more or less ran into it at the exact moment we decided to leave the village and mosey on to the next town. I say mosey as we were walking about the speed of a slow march, but with much less formality, yet we had more purpose than could be said for a saunter. Saunter kind of sounds like the walking equivalent of loitering.

The path from Vernazza to Corniglia included the highest point along the entire path and indeed the entire first half hour seemed to simply involve stairs of various make, shape and size. An hour of so later and we were rewarded with a typically stunning view on our approach to Corniglia. Given that we had already seen this town the day before, we only stopped long enough to buy some water and a popsicle each.

Again we hit the trail, having got the two biggies out of the way, the distance to the next town was meant to be less than an hour so we were confident that we were well past half way and (even better) that we were gboing to be able to keep it together for the rest of the path.

The next town, Manarola, got exceedingly short shrift from us. Well that was supposed to be the idea anyway. We took some photos on our approach, but since we had water left over we decided to blast right through to the next town - especially as it was getting late and we were concerned that they were going to close the path for the night. That was the theory. The reality involved a wrong turning (due to obscure/non-existant signage) which resulted in half an hour of climbing hills before we realised our mistake. Retracing our steps back to town, we righted our wrong (which was by now a left) and struck out in the correct direction.

The path between Manarola and Riomaggiore is the shortest (only 20 mins) and is paved the entire way. After the hillside and rocks, gravel etc this felt like luxury and was a good way to finish. Not so good that we decided to look around the town. No, by then our feets were a bit achy and bizarrely, my hands had swollen to nearly twice their normal size. The train invited us back to La Spezia, so back to La Spezia we went.

Monday 25 August 2008

Another day, another brilliant coffee in a bar down the road (different bar, same experience), another train to the Cinque Terre and another village to explore. Today we decided to pay more attention to the villages we blasted through yesterday, namely Vernazza, Manarolla and Riomaggiore.

Vernazza is simply beautiful, however I wasn't happy with simple and wanted to explore the alleys and find out what kind of trouble curiosity can get you into. Curiosity led us straight to a mother and daughter pair who were being shown (sort of) to their hotel by a guide.

The guide took them as far as some stairs and said words to the effect of "up there, right, up, left, up, 41". Given that this was a grown up daughter with her elderly mother and that each of them had huge cases and that they were currently blocking the stairs that I myself wanted to ascend, naturally I offered to assist. It was either that or watch them struggle for the next 20 minutes - or push past rudely.

Chivalry won the day and I lugged a suitcase (for one person, which weighed more than twice as much as the suitcase Cheri and I were sharing) up four or five flights of windy, narrow, stone stairs. One wonders how they will get them down again. A quick query to that effect revealed their plan to involve a hefty kick and gravity...

Once we had explored as much as we could, we hopped on the train to Manarolla. The town itself was beautiful, however had less scope for exploration - given that every alley began with a flight of stairs which seemed like a bad idea. Instead we scaled an inclined path that seemed to lead to a good vantage point. The locals thought so too and had built a cemetry overlooking their town. Cemetries Cinque Terre style involve a stone wall with cubby holes set into it. Each hole is big enough to slide a coffin into. Once this has been done, the end is sealed with stone, into which typical gravestone details are carved. The overall effect is probably akin to seeing an open air morgue doen in stone.

Rather than wait for the train we walked through to the next town Riomaggiore. Elusively, neither the train , nor the walk actually go into the town. Unless you're in an exploring mood, you could actually miss out. Luckily we were in scuh a mood and found our way into the fifth and final village.

Equally as beautiful as the other villages, but much less overrun with tourists (possibly due to the elusiveness, possibly due to the fact it was now late afternoon on the Monday of a bank holiday weekend). Riomaggiore occupied our time for a while, however enthusiasm was beginning to wane as the spectre of transit reared its ugly head. Add to this a hot and sweaty day and no prospect of a shower till London (8 hours of travel away) and you have an unpleasant end to the weekend.

Well, to be fair, it was probably more unpleasant for the people around us than for us and besides, you have to the bad with the good, or in the case of the Cinque Terre, the very very good.

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