FRIDAY AT CINQUE TERRRE

Hi Everybody. Today was a truly great day, a combination of healthy exercise and spectacular scenery and sights. We caught the train to Riomaggiore being the southern most of the five villages making up Cinque Terre. The train line alternates between the seafront and lengthy tunnels as it parallels the coast line.

After wandering its narrow streets and admiring its rugged interaction with the Mediterranean Sea, we walked to the next village being Manarola, an easy 20 minute walk on a well paved path.

The country is a combination of precipitous mountains and the sea with the villages perched wherever they can fit. What are truly spectacular are the terraces on the steep hillsides where olives and grapes have been grown for hundreds of years. Modern technology has provided flying fox type devices to get access to and fruit from the terraces but the work that must have gone into building the terraces and cultivating crops on them hundreds of years ago defies understanding.

The path between Maranola and Corniglia was closed because of a landslip so we had to take the train for that leg. To get from the Corniglia station to the village involves a climb of 365 steps so we did a bit of Italian queue pushing to get on the bus to avoid that challenge. As Trish says, being an elderly lady has its privileges.

After a pleasant panini for lunch in Corniglia, we tackled the 90 minute rugged path along the spectacular coastline to Vernazza. We really enjoyed the beer/wine we had at the first bar we came to in Vernazza.

At that stage, we were running out of time so we skipped the final village of Monterosso, being the most developed and least quaint and, after the mandatory gelati, returned by train to Deiva Marina where we saw what we assume is a typical Italian beach scene being endless rows of deck chairs on the private, as distinct from public, part of the black sand/gravel beach waiting for somebody to occupy them. Very quaint.   What was intriguing was the emu (yes, an emu) interacting with the ducks in the local watercourse. Where did he come from?

 

We finished the day by treating ourselves to a very Italian dinner and a local wine at the restaurant located within the park where we are staying - very nice.

Tomorrow will be a rest day in that we are unlikely to do much walking. We head north to the mountains and lakes so a fair portion of the day will be spent getting there on wide motorways without having to worry about narrow roads and buses. On the subject of buses, I attacked the mark left by the buses mirror with a soapy scourer and it’s gone!