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Cinque Terre

July 14, 2003

Dear Friends and Families,

Everyone raves about the Italian coastal stretch called Cinque Terre ("Five Villages" or "Five Countries"). Our main guidebook, "Rick Steves Italy" devotes 30 pages to the five coastal villages,. We opted for a day-trip because there is a direct train from Pontremoli to Monterossa al Mare, the most distant of the Terre.

The ride down to the coast was fine. The train had a mixture of workers heading as far as Genoa and beach people joining us to Monterossa. Fabio, our Villa Emilia host, had said that Monterossa is only worth a visit for a stay on its sandy beach, so as soon as we arrived, we grabbed the next local train and backtracked one Terre to Vernazza. The five villages were originally only linked by the sea and were reputedly so isolated for generations that each developed a separate dialect, but now there are hourly trains, as well as long, narrow roads.

Vernazza has a real harbor and a small beach. It is as picturesque as any movie setting, with houses perched in the rocky hills and ancient terraced fields notched above the houses. It also has t-shirt shops and internet points, in stark contrast to our base at Pontremoli. In fact, the narrow streets were filled with the sound of American English and this was a bit off-putting. After walking around, we headed to the train station to wait for the local to Corniglia, the middle of the five villages.

It was here that we discovered that hourly trains mean that an average wait is a half-hour, even if the subsequent train trip is only a few minutes. This was complicated by the fact that it took a couple trips before we understood the posted train schedule. Travel advice: understand train schedules. We didn't and spent almost two hours of our day sitting on station benches.

Nevertheless, we did finally make it to Corniglia, a village that's on top of a hill rather than down by the sea. Getting into town requires a climb up 150+ stairs from the train stop. Once there, we saw more narrow streets, more terraced fields, and more young American tourists.

We stopped at an authentic-looking restaurant off the town square and ordered the seafood lunch we had been looking forward to. Marianne had a seafood salad, a cold mixture of mussels, fish, octopus, etc. One of the "etc." tasted strange. I ordered the fried mixed seafood and got a very picturesque plate of fried things, including enough small bones to assure my calcium supply for the next several months at least. At the end of our meal, we sat back and exclaimed, "That was bad!" Oh well, travel invites such experiences.

After lunch, we hurried down the 150+ steps and were just coming off the street into the train station when our train arrived. Unfortunately, it took us 60 seconds to reach the train door and the conductor had just locked it fives seconds before. Those five seconds cost us an hour in the hot sun on the train platform, since we certainly were not going up and down that staircase again and the foot path between Corniglia and the next village reportedly takes two hours and is to be avoided in summer sun and without "suitable footwear".

Eventually the train did come and took us on a two-minute ride to Manarola. Like Vernazza, Manarola had houses perched in the rocky hills and ancient terraced fields notched above the houses. The beach was mostly a pile of rocks, but there were sun-worshippers out there anyway. We wandered through town but were inspired only to grab the next train south, skip Riomaggiore, the fifth of the Cinque Terre towns, and head to the hills of Pontremoli.

Later, we talked about why we had such a negative impression of the Cinque Terre towns. Certainly, to give any town justice requires an overnight stay or two. Our day-trip wasn't fair. The villages we saw were picturesque and all but, frankly, we've seen lots of hill towns by now and virtually all of them are picturesque. In the end, maybe it's just not comfortable to visit places where the majority of the people we see are tourists like ourselves. Such places seem contrived, like Disney World.

Too bad. Maybe we'll return in the off-season and stay long enough to give the towns of the Cinque Terre a fair shot.

John and Marianne

Website:

National Park: http://www.parconazionale5terre.it

Monterossa has a small harbor and a small beach. At 10:30 in the morning, families were starting their beach days.

Monterossa (and the others) did not devote much precious space to streets. It seemed each town was organized around these small alley-sized passages.

This is the view from the Doria castle, looking down on the "residential section" of Vernazza.

The view from the other direction is of "downtown". The pattern of fields terraced behind town was repeated in the other Cinque Terre towns. Originally, the combination of the sea and these small fields were enough to feed each town.

The direct route up to Coniglio was 150+ stairs. It was actually a pleasant walk, despite the heat.

My fisherman's lunch looked wonderful. However, I have to say, there was almost as much bone in this mixture as meat. I can't even identify the long skinny orange fish but it was 90% bone. Good calcium source, I suppose.

The Manarola train station was typical. It was part in a tunnel and part in the hot afternoon sun. These same tracks are used by all trains up and down the coast, not just the locals that connect the Cinque Terre.

Manarola's beach is this rock jetty. The sun worshippers didn't seem to mind. The water was a beautiful clear blue throughout the area.

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	Monterossa has a small harbor and a small beach. At 10:30 in the morning, families were starting their beach days.		Monterossa (and the others) did not devote much precious space to streets. It seemed each town was organized around these small alley-sized passages.
This is the view from the Doria castle, looking down on the "residential section" of Vernazza.		The view from the other direction is of "downtown". The pattern of fields terraced behind town was repeated in the other Cinque Terre towns. Originally, the combination of the sea and these small fields were enough to feed each town.
	The direct route up to Coniglio was 150+ stairs. It was actually a pleasant walk, despite the heat.		My fisherman's lunch looked wonderful. However, I have to say, there was almost as much bone in this mixture as meat. I can't even identify the long skinny orange fish but it was 90% bone. Good calcium source, I suppose.
The Manarola train station was typical. It was part in a tunnel and part in the hot afternoon sun. These same tracks are used by all trains up and down the coast, not just the locals that connect the Cinque Terre.		Manarola's beach is this rock jetty. The sun worshippers didn't seem to mind. The water was a beautiful clear blue throughout the area.