Il Dolce Viaggio: Cinque Terre

After the final Saturday market around Parma we didn't have any stops to make before Cinque Terre. We took the E33 highway most of the way and then a series of smaller roads to our agriturismo. The final kilometer was a private drive that was barely wide enough for one car, and I'm not sure what we would have done if someone had happened to be coming in the other direction. By now we had crossed into and out of Tuscany from Emilia-Romagna and were back in Liguria but I had no idea of that at the time. I was under the misapprehension that Cinque Terre was in the northwestern corner of Tuscany. Agristurismo Locanda del Papa was in a scenic and secluded location in the mountains above the major town of La Spezia. It wasn't in the most convenient spot to access the villages of Cinque Terre but it more than made up for it with its views and the friendliness of its married proprietors, who politely but firmly straightened out my misconceptions of Italian geography. They also gave us the unwelcome news that a twenty-four hour train strike was due to begin at nine that evening. Would any trains be running at all? Probably on a reduced schedule, but no one knew for sure.

Once we had settled in we decided to take advantage of our early arrival and head straight to Manarola, the village where my research indicated we would be most likely to find parking. The drive was a solid half hour through very hilly territory, with two stretches of multiple hairpin turns that I worried would upset the stomachs of Spenser or Mei Ling. They made it through without any apparent discomfort and once we arrived at the outdoor lot above Manarola there were two spaces open. We trudged down staircases to the town where there was another, larger parking lot which also had some open spaces. Lesson learned.

I knew we wouldn't have time to visit all five villages that day so I had settled on Vernazza and Corniglia as the optimal segment. We were only in Manarola to park and catch the train so we would defer an exploration of the town until the next day. We paused briefly to admire the thirteenth century Torre Campanaria, originally a defensive watchtower but now repurposed as the belltower for the Church of San Lorenzo. There was just one major street which led from the parking lots through the center of the village. About halfway to the port we made a left at the tunnel which took us to the town's train station.

Cinque Terre's uniqueness is due to the dramatic topology of its coastline, formed by a range of Apennine mountains that directly abuts the Ligurian Sea. The five villages that give the region its name date back to the Romans, although the area had already been settled in prehistoric times. Although it is a common misconception that the Cinque Terre are fishing villages, they were originally further inland and predominantly agricultural. The inhabitants cut terraced fields into the hillsides to cultivate grapes and olives. During medieval times the inhabitants began moving to natural harbors between the coastal mountains as the threat of piracy diminished.

Cinque Terre required some extensive pre-departure research, mainly due to the myriad of forms of transportation between the villages each with their own advantages and disadvantages. For us the natural approach would have been by car, except for the quite significant problem of finding a place to park if the small lots outside the villages were full. Most of the villages were connected by walking trails, which of course wouldn't require any tickets or advance planning, but some of the paths were too long and strenuous for the kids. There was a flat, seaside stroll between Manarola and Riomaggiore called the Via dell'Amore which had been closed for years due to a rock fall. This would have been perfect for us and there was a possibility that it would have reopened by the time we arrived, but unfortunately this didn't happen for another month after our visit. That left the train line that ran between La Spezia and Levanto, stopping at all five villages along the way, and the ferry. The train seemed like a simpler undertaking so we decided to use that mode for the short hop north to Vernazza. We successfully purchased our tickets from the machines after some mild confusion and a very spacious two-level train arrived shortly thereafter. Our exploration of the five lands was now in progress.

Vernazza has the reputation for being the most beautiful of the five villages and has the region's only natural harbor, thanks to a rocky outcrop that is topped by a medieval fortress. The cluster of buildings in the vicinity of the harbor is surrounded by the region's most extensive array of terraced hillsides which are still used to cultivate grapevines.

Once we reached the harbor it was clear that Vernazza was every bit as beautiful as its reputation. The surrounding buildings were freshly painted in a rainbow of colors which extended to the canopies and umbrellas over the sidewalk cafes. The medieval church of Santa Margherita di Antiochia stood right at the water's edge featuring a magnificent forty meter belltower. Sunbathers packed a small and rather unpleasant artificial beach by the murky water of the port.

As in Manarola there was just one main street that extended from the port all the way to the road out of town. All the side streets were narrow alleys with staircases that led upward to the hillsides, and then there were more pedestrian alleys connecting those. Most of the tourist businesses and cafes were on the main street but we enjoyed getting lost in the labyrinth of alleys on the hillside to the south. Eventually we reached the Castello Doria, actually a remnant of the town's medieval fortifications rather than a castle.

On the northern hillside we found a staircase that seemed to go up forever. We almost gave up a couple of times but we were enjoying the views of the terraced fields and people on the descent were telling us to keep going. The layout of the town was a testimony to the resourcefulness of the medieval Italians in carving a city out of almost any type of landscape.

Eventually we came to the Convent of San Francesco where there was a balcony with some wonderful views over the harbor and the fortress. We had already seen Vernazza from many different perspectives but this was probably my favorite. I loved how the ascending rows of colorful multistory buildings resembled the shape of the terraced hillsides, yet rendered in a completely different way. At the top of it all was the fortress and the solitary tower, a proud reminder of the town's long history of withstanding and surviving attacks from the sea. The small fishing boats lined up at the dock and dotting the little harbor were just as colorful as the vibrant buildings.

Corniglia receives the fewest visitors of the five villages because it is perched high on the cliffs and does not contact the sea, although there is a long path down to a small boat launch. The ferry does not stop there and it is also the hardest village to reach by car. The Cinque Terre train stops far underneath the town and requires visitors to either climb the 382 step Scalinata Lardarina or wait an indeterminate time to get on the overcrowded shuttle bus. That left the fourth mode of available transportation, one that my children are not particularly fond of but seemed to me to be an ideal way of experiencing the terrain between the villages and avoiding the greater evil of the stairs.

The path from Vernazza to Corniglia is considered the easiest leg of the Sentiero Azzurro, the walking trail that connects all five villages of Cinque Terre. Normally that would be the Via dell'Amore connecting Manarola and Riomaggiore but it had still not reopened as of our visit and the inland alternative was quite long and strenuous. To reach Corniglia we still had to walk four kilometers which was quite a distance for the kids but the weather was a bit cooler along the coast than it had been in Lombardy and I felt we would be able to get it done. The trail began with a climb up stone stairs past another nameless medieval tower, giving us a great view straight down the long axis of the rocky spur that supported the Castello Doria.

Mei Ling likes to cope with these long walks by taking off ahead and Cleo joined her, with Spenser struggling to keep up. I prefer to pace myself but I wasn't familiar with the trail and we quickly ran into some stretches that made me a little uncomfortable regarding safety. I had to rush and goad Ian to keep up with me until I could corral Spenser and insist that he stay behind with us. The trail was more strenuous than I had expected with a lot of elevation changes but I couldn't complain about our surroundings or the views over the Ligurian Sea.

About halfway through the trek we came upon a sight we hadn't been expecting at all. A small group of people were clustered around a shack on the side of the trail where a man was chopping fruit. He had quite an extensive selection of fruits and was making both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks as well as mixed fruit cups. I hadn't realized how thirsty I was and I quickly knocked back two non-alcoholic juices while Mei Ling and the kids also filled up their tanks. A teenaged boy was working inside the shack and I tried to order from him in Italian, but he politely told me in perfect English that he didn't speak Italian. It seemed that he and his mother, the partner of the man making the drinks, were Swedish. I never found out where the man was from but he wasn't Swedish or Italian. They were living nearby on the mountainside and growing fruits, vegetables, and olives. The refreshment shack was a way to supplement the income they made from farming. It was amazing how this idyllic little cafe had appeared out of nowhere in this seemingly remote location. I was already glad we had chosen to walk but this encounter had really shown me the advantages of choosing this less popular mode of transportation. For the first time we could make out the outline of Corniglia on a distant ridge.

Once we had our eyes on Corniglia the path no longer seemed quite so strenuous. Vernazza had been a beautiful village but nothing we had seen before could compare to Corniglia's magical appearance, balanced precariously atop the flat summit of a narrow ridge. It seemed as though the entire town was on the verge of slipping over the cliff and into the sea at any moment.

Although the town sometimes seemed almost close enough to throw a ball into it was a mirage. It took us another hour after first catching sight of Corniglia before we rounded the final curve in the Sentiero Azzurro that brought us to the approach into the town.

Once we entered Corniglia we realized that it was even more compact and intimate than Vernazza and Manarola. Once again there was only one main street but it was considerably narrower than the central arteries of the other two villages we had seen that day, and there was correspondingly less foot traffic. In the center of it all was Corniglia's solitary plaza Largo Taragio, filled with restaurants. Twin staircases led upward on either side of an ancient chapel to the upper level of the town, but our efforts to explore further were frustrated by netting that blocked access to the terrace at the top.

We had arrived just after the beginning of the dinner period and I was worried that all the restaurants in town were already packed. Surprisingly we got seated at our first choice A Cantina da Mananan, although the waitress warned us that we needed to be out before the second seating at nine. Those types of warnings are always music to my ears because few things make me happier than quick and efficient service, and we have nothing to gain by dawdling over our meals. The restaurant was small and had a surprising number of open tables. The interior was very rustic with stone walls that were covered with framed prints and photographs. There were a number of bookshelves that were as likely to support bottles of wine and olive oil as they were to carry books. High on the wall were a series of black and white photos of a group of naked young men who appeared to be crushing wine grapes with their feet. They were probably drunk and displayed their full frontal nudity quite explicitly. I quickly looked away so the kids wouldn't follow my line of sight and happily they never noticed the photographs for the duration of the meal.

The main dish that we ordered was the shellfish linguini for two since there hadn't been much seafood around Parma. Cleo and Ian ate it ravenously while the rest of us had lighter fare. The most memorable event was when our waitress brought over a caprese salad that Mei Ling and I had considered but decided not to order. I can only assume she overheard us talking about the menu since our table was up against the bar and she was right behind it. When we told her we hadn't ordered it she fixed us with a cold stare, told us she was quite sure we had, and deposited it on the table before walking away. I suppose that's the kind of interaction that leads tourists to decry the service in Italian restaurants but it didn't trouble us much. We ate the salad and the burrata was actually quite good, so perhaps the waitress did us a favor. Despite her concerns about the second seating the waitress wasn't in any rush to get us our check. When we stepped out again into the evening a large cohort of people were waiting outside the restaurant to be seated.

Now that the second seating was in progress, the main street Via Solferino was very quiet. Most of the buildings had some kind of business on the ground floor that catered to visitors, either to their appetites or their apparel. There were just a couple of small side streets and these were mostly empty and without commercial establishments. Here we could walk between the bare stone walls and imagine ourselves in the town five hundred years ago when it probably looked much the same as now.

At the outermost point on the ridge there was a spacious patio paved with flagstones where we could see the last reddish reflections of the setting sun in the western sky. It was now time to turn our attention to the Scalinata Lardarina which would lead us to the train station. As forbidding as the endless staircase might have seemed to someone needing to ascend from the station, it was a breeze to go down and the kids raced each other to the bottom. In our village-induced trance we had completely forgotten about the train strike scheduled to begin at nine and we had to squirm on the platform for almost an hour wondering if we were destined to spend all night there. Eventually one arrived and picked us up with a few other stragglers and zoomed eastward along the coast.

Back at Manarola we clambered back up to the parking lot to retrieve our car. The long drive home through the steep winding roads of the forest was unnerving in the darkness. As we slowed to navigate a hairpin my eye caught a flash of movement in the headlights and I stopped the car. A wild boar was casually walking along the side of the road ignoring our car completely. Another one came out of the underbrush and then another, and soon there was an entire sounder of sows and young foraging on the shoulder and wandering onto the asphalt. The adults were a little smaller than I would have expected and not particularly fierce-looking. By now there were a couple more cars behind me but no one seemed to mind this brief interlude to appreciate a peaceful encounter between the worlds of the feral and the civilized. Little did we know that several of their brethren would be gracing our plates during our two weeks in Tuscany. After giving the kids a chance to bake the episode into their memories we resumed our drive back to Locanda del Papa. We had only seen two of the five lands which meant the next day would be a busy one.