Inside & Outside Cinque Terre

On Friday afternoon I left Florence for Cinque Terre.  The first time I heard about these five towns was during my sophomore year at Wash U, when I saw pictures on facebook of a few guys I know from school backpacking up a ridiculously colorful street at dusk with flags over their heads.  I asked one of them where that was, and they told me about Cinque Terre.  When I met my friend Samira at the Riomaggiore train station, the town we stayed in for the weekend, the first thing I saw after leaving the station was this street from their pictures (see picture).
 

Samira also has a very well-located friend, although her’s was actually her “host mom” a couple years ago at camp, but she now lives in an apartment just off the main road in Riomaggiore, the biggest of the five towns (meaning 1800 people).  I crashed on a pullout bed in the living room/dining room/second bedroom of her apartment.

The beauty of Cinque Terre is the color of the towns, but the localness was what made the trip special for me.  In Riomaggiore, there are no cars, everyone walks or boats.  During mid-day, tourists rule, but in the mornings and evenings, it’s still a pretty local place.  I went to a market on the main street to buy fruit for breakfast, and most of the people there were residents. 

Samira’s friend probably knew everyone in the town, and a few of her friends came over for dinner one night.  Two of them operate an “ice cream boat,” which is like an ice cream truck except they operate on the seas and cater to other boats, and serve alcohol in addition to ice cream.  We went by one of the main cafes and a friend of her’s who I’d already met was working there.  I’m a huge fan of visiting places where you have friends who live there, and this experience was pretty amazing.

The first night Samira and I went in to La Spezia, the main city near Cinque Terre, for dinner at the restaurant where her friend works.  We got to the station a minute before the train, and the ticket machine wasn’t working.  She already had a ticket, but I did not, and the next train wasn’t for 40 minutes.  So, we hopped on anyway, for the most nerve-racking 8-minute journey of my life.  We tried finding a conductor to explain the situation, but gave up halfway though.  As the train was slowing down, Samira spotted the conductor coming in the other end of the car.  Thankfully, he didn’t reach us in time. 

We got lost on our way to the restaurant but almost an hour later finally sat down for some delicious, albeit minimal, ravioli.  Samira’s friend gave us a nice discount, and we headed back home to Rio(maggiore).

Saturday was boat day.  We visited three of the five towns by a boat that felt more like a seesaw.  The fifth town (most northwest) is Monterosso.  It didn’t look that impressive, but we wandered upward and there were some amazing little paths and crooked buildings (see picture).  We wrapped around the hill that divides the town in two and found our way to a boardwalk along a beautiful beach that we returned to on Sunday.  There was also an excellent foccaciaria there.  Cinque Terre is known for foccacia, and I had about five pieces while I was there.

The fourth town is Vernazza, and it (along with Rio) is the most striking upon arrival.  There is a piazza bordered on three sides by colorful buildings and even more vibrant umbrellas, and the other side is the beach (see picture of Samira & I in the "snapshots" post).  We had lunch there, although I ordered spaghetti with fish, and the fish turned out to be several varieties of shellfish.  But the plain tomato spaghetti was pretty good.

We floated past Corniglia, the middle town which is not as accessible by sea, and moved on to the second town, Manarola.  The buildings here, although colorful, are not particularly beautiful, so we were disappointed.  But we walked to the back of the town and followed an increasingly narrow staircase up into the vineyards facing the town.  We wound up with an incredible view of the center, far below.

On Saturday night I finally had my birthday dinner, I was alone in Palermo for the real thing so there was no sense doing it then.  Samira and I went to a fish restaurant (there are only fish restaurants) right by the sea in Rio, which is a setting that will be hard to beat for any future birthday dinners.

Sunday was hiking day.  I got up early and set off hiking between the towns, visiting all but the farthest one.  The trail began pretty flat and going right along the water, but after the third town went inland a bit and resembled a typical hiking trail, which I actually enjoyed more.  I made it to Corniglia, the high town, which was refreshingly dull.  I say this in the kindest way – I had become overwhelmed by all the color, and there are a lot of old-looking gray buildings mixed up with the colorful ones in Corniglia.  The town is wrapped around a canyon of vineyards, so once again I followed increasingly narrow staircases into vineyards, this time to get pictures of the town, far above. 

We went to the beach for the afternoon and that night was the dinner at Samira's friend's apt, which consisted almost entirely of shellfish.  Because the table is small, our host ate on the bed next to the table, which was above my pullout bed.  Somehow things got moved around and when I woke up in the middle of the night because I was rolling over something, I pulled out a good chunk of lobster (including an antanna) from my sheets.  Not a kosher night's sleep.