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Published: October 2nd 2008
Vernazza
The best of the five towns, we think.Hey! Do you want to hear a slightly amusing anecdote? We've seen signs that post hours in Italian as "11:00 - 24:00" and in English read "11:00am to 12:00pm". It's kind of funny, but it's also really thoughtful of them to have made an English sign in the first place, so I'd never make fun of it. That's why it's just an "amusing anecdote".... and I realize that the amusement is limited..... very limited....
moving on...
Ok! The Cinque Terre! Here we come! More beach time! And it's our last destination in Italy before Amy heads back home and Neil and I head off... wherever.
The rail strike was over, but our train to Pisa was significantly delayed part way down the line when it hit someone. Apparently they had been standing on the platform and fainted onto the tracks just as the train was about to pass through the station. Also, his friend saw him faint and jumped onto the tracks and moved his arms and legs between the rails so they wouldn't get run over by the wheels of the train before jumping out of the way himself. The train stopped very quickly and they pulled
him out alive, so hopefully he ended up ok. Quite the unexpected train traveling drama.
I'll lighten the mood by giving an example of how even after a solid month of travel, will still mess up the trains every once in a while. In Pisa we grabbed a train and got off in Riomaggiore in the Cinque Terre.... but it wasn't until after we got off that we figured out that our hostel was in Manarola. I was in charge of the hostel information, so my bad....
No big deal, Manarola is the next town, so we got on another train headed towards Manarola. Except our train didn't stop in Manarola and tore through the station... and the next two stations... before stopping in Monterosso. Ok, maybe we'll read some schedule boards.... We caught a correct train and ended up in Manarola with plenty of time to check into our hostel and go get dinner. Actually, our extra train rides took under half an hour, and we got to see some of the Cinque Terre, so it worked out.
We met an Australian in our hostel and the four of us went for dinner at a local
restaurant recommended in his Rick Steve's guidebook.
Actually, our hostel is also recommended by Rick Steve's, and he happened to stay there about a week before us to update his guidebook. There were also a bunch of Christmas cards from him from years past posted on the wall. Neil figures the Cinque Terre owes him a statue in his honour since he is pretty much responsible for the explosion of tourism there. Most people that travel to the region are brought there by his books or TV series, including us.
... But let's get back to the restaurant, where they had a picture of Rick Steve's name on the window (misspelled) beside his picture, and we had a good dinner. The portions were smaller than we were hoping for after a long day of travel, so we topped up with Gelatto! I think the excessive amount of cheap Gelatto is what we are going to miss most about Italy.
After a satisfying amount of Gelatto, we headed off to bed to ensure that we would be rested for a big hike the following day.
Our first impressions of the Cinque Terre remind us a lot of
the Amalfi Coast, but the scenery is less dramatic in the Cinque Terre. Which shouldn't take away from the incredible coastal scenery of the Cinque Terre, it should just serve indicate how truly blown away we were by the Amalfi coast. The Cinque Terre is somewhat less touristy than the Amalfi coast, and the towns feel like they have more of a balance between tourists and locals. Also, you can't ignore the small fishing boats that line the streets after being pulled out of the water following a day on the water.
So with our town explored, we set off to do the popular hike that links the five towns of the Cinque Terre together. It was very cool. Each of the five towns is a little different. Our favourite place was Vernazza, and it belongs on every postcard! We stopped for lunch there before continuing on to Monterosso, the final town.
The hike between the first 3 towns was quite easy, and got more difficult on the way to Vernazza. The last leg to Monterosso was the longest and most difficult, but still very manageable for anyone in good health, or anyone willing to just take it
The street of Manarola
Up or down. Those are your two options slow. And you might as well enjoy it!
One of the more memorable things was passing by an old bearded man by the side of the pathway along one of the more difficult stretches. He was playing a piccolo and selling limoncello (presumably homemade). I kind of regret not buying any. He also had lemons. HUGE lemons! They'd give most cantaloupe a scare!
For dinner, we went to the other restaurant in Manarola... yep, there are only two restaurants. At least there are only two that we found. We actually liked it better than the other one.
We followed up dinner with some wine and a game of scrabble with a Finn. He did pretty well considering we made him spell English words! We would have let him spell Finnish ones but we didn't think there were enough "i"s.
The next day was kind of a "Well, we did the hike yesterday, so what are we going to do today?" kind of a day. Neil and Amy went to the beach, while our new Aussie friend, Andrew, and myself went to go rent mountain bikes. Andrew got three hours free with his Cinque Terre card, and
The first stretch of the hike
Looking back toward Riomaggiore. The first stretch of the hike was short and easy. It got tougher. since they forgot to charge me, so did I.
It took us the first half of the day to get to the bike rental place since we had to wait for a bus to take us to the top of the mountain where the bike rental place happened to be. The bikes were way to small for us, and since Andrew hadn't ridden a bike in ten years, we got off to a shaky start. We headed out mostly riding a little downhill, so we headed mostly uphill on the way back. We made sure to turn around before it got too steep, which was a good call.
It was a really cool ride. The scenery is quite different at the top of the mountain. The forest is quite dense and very different from the forest near the sea. The air is also cooler, which is a bonus when it's already hot and humid out.
After returning our bikes, we headed back to Monterosso for some beach time, and what likely was my last swim in the Mediterranean Sea on this trip. I'll be back.
For dinner, the five of us went to the same restaurant
we went to the previous night. And since it was our last meal in Italy, we went all out. Andrew and I split Linguine Batti Batti (some shell fish) and Grilled Seabass. I don't think I've ever had seafood that good. It was amazing! And they gave us complimentary shots of limoncello, which was very kind, and delicious.
Tomorrow, Neil and Amy head off to Milan before going back to Paris, and I'll take four trains to a random town in Austria. It should be a blast!
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