Benvenuti In Paradiso - Cinque Terra

May 10, 2015

Benvenuti In Paradiso - Cinque Terra

The Cinque Terra, a remote (but well known) piece of the Italian Riviera - Five quaint villages linked by train, no cars (at least not in Vernazza, "our town"), and not a museum in sight - just what the doctor ordered after visiting the museum capital of Italy, Florence.

We arrive in Vernazza where we are met by Maria's daughter in law (we get off the train, stare around, start walking, and up comes Carla - Are you Don?), who takes us to our Vernazza home for three nights, "The Charming Room", a small apartment right on the Piazza Marconi on the harbor, owned by Maria and Giacomo - our view is of the harbor and church bell tower - we'll take it! Phenomenal crashing waves into and over the breakwater here, which we can hear from our place.

Backtracking to our departure from Florence.... we gave a fond farewell to Elena (she gave Donna a parting gift – she also did our laundry while we were there ). Took the bus to the train station, where I stood in line to reserve tickets for return from Vernazza to Venice. Donna took off for the market to see if she could buy two more “ponchos” for Kirsten and Anna. I had a near disaster when after paying for my reservations, somehow my credit card fell to the ground (But I didn’t notice that ). I had all the luggage, so I had my hands full. I walked 100 feet or so to some seats and sat down, and luckily I needed to get out a pen to fill in my Eurail pass for the day of travel, and noticed my credit card was missing…spent a panicked five minutes or so searching all of my pockets and double checking my things…then dragged all of our luggage back to ticket counter where luckily my credit card was lying on the pavement near the ticket counter. A close call! We had dinner at Resorante Belforte our first night here, where we had the most dramatic setting for a dinner in our lives. We had a table outside (Donna had made a reservation) where below us were crashing waves.

First full day here, Donna walked up to the Two Pirates restorante to buy some pastries, and we had our little breakfast at our place. Then we hiked the trail from Vernazza to Montessora…this is the most challenging of the trails. And there were several vertical sections leaving each of the towns. Overcast skies for the hike to Monterossa, but then clearing blue skies the rest of the time…..so the best of all worlds. A gorgeous coastline!!!! Many people, definitely not a wilderness hike, although nothing is wilderness here; there are after all 61 million Italians, in a country roughly the same size as Colorado, population 5.5 million or so. We grabbed a bench by the sea in Monterossa and Donna bought a Panini and some other local bread made of chick peas, and had a relaxing lunch. Then knocked around town for a bit, bought gelato (of course), and Donna bought some high quality postcards (reproductions of handpainted scenes of Vernazza)..from a shopkeeper from California, before hiking back to Vernazza.

We had planned on hiking the lower trails between the other towns on our second full day, but they were all closed inexplicably (perhaps it still has to do with cleanup from the 2011 major mudslide that hit this area - our apartment in Vernazza was half full of mud after that event!). So instead we took the train between each town, and walked around each town. They were all wonderful, and we got many great photos. Probably our favorites were Vernazza where we are staying, Manarola – which had a dramatic waterfront and beautiful walkway with excellent viewpoints of the town (also a vineyard walk ) – this is the town we had lunch in; Corniglia – which is perched about 100 feet above the ocean – very quaint, and probably the least visited because of the steep pathway from the train station to the village (it would be very challenging carrying luggage up that ), then Monterossa, and finally Riomaggiore., the southernmost and first town. At the fortress look out in Riomaggiore, an older man struck up a conversation with Donna, he had her sit next to him and after telling us some things to do (too late for we were at the end of our time in Cinque Terra), asked for a kiss good bye (both cheeks) and had me take his picture with Donna. He gave us his address to mail him the picture. He told me I was a lucky man, since Donna was so beautiful. How true!

Maria and Giacomo dropped by our first morning in Vernazza and we had a nice visit with Giacomo doing the translating... a fair bit of waving about of the hands..it all worked. Maria is 75 and Giacomo is 81...such a cute couple. They came by just before we left too, and Maria gave Donna some painted rocks (she has taken up painting in "her old age") as a momento.

Take a look at the photos..this was a beautiful area.