Day 21 Lerici

Day 21 Lerici

I think everyone who has seen the photos of the Cinque Terre has wanted the experience of walking through the towns and this was what we planned to do today. Breakfast was in the little dining room downstairs and there was a full spread even though we were the only people there at 8am. We expected to be walking all day so we fortified ourselves with a good spread.

We drove into and parked our car beneath the railway station and got the local train out of the city of La Spezia, a substantial shipping port where we saw a battered Italian naval vessel probably docking for repairs. La Spezia was a busy, thriving place. From here we took the train to the beginning of the Cinque Terre trail in Riomaggiore.

Rather than just focusing on the walk between the towns, we were more interested in the towns themselves. The train arrives through a tunnel gouged through the heart of that black mass of mountain and there were houses pinned to the cliffs immediately above the tunnel. A great crowd of people alighted from the train Riomaggiore and began the walk through the tunnel into the town. We took our time rather than treating it like a forced march and broke away from the stream of tourists to explore the upper reaches of the own through a near vertical set of stairs that gave the locals access to their homes. We could see a castle at the top and wanted to reach it and see the view back to the town and out to sea. Often these houses only seemed to be clinging to the face of the cliffs by a wing and a prayer. While some of the houses sat on a foothold of land, others seemed to be gouged out of the mountain itself. We walked upwards at a steady pace, one eye on the path and the other on the views of the tumble of multi-coloured houses and the glistening sea beyond. The walk was at times tiring but the reward was always the view and the views became better and better the higher we rose. at the top there was  conveniently placed seat in the shade of a couple of gnarled old pines. they framed the view beautifully. The people of this region don’t live on the mountains, they live with the mountains. These people truly must have the constitution and legs of wild goats.

Returning to lower ground was a relief and after a walk through the town and around the little harbour littered with upturned dinghies soared for the cooler months, we returned to the train station. Here we bought a Cinque Terre pass that gave us unlimited train travel between the 5 towns, free access to wifi and probably, most importantly, free access to toilets in each town. We asked at the tourist office about which direction to go to begin the walk to the next town but were surprised to hear that all the paths had been closed due to landslides. We could walk some way out of each town but there was no way that we could walk between the hamlets. After that tiring climb I have to admit that I was somewhat less than disappointed.

We caught the train to the furthest town of Monterosso. We emerged from the station to an enormous beach and. a pretty sea front. A couple of local were fishing off the rocks and doing their best to ignore us and the long trails of Asian tourists that had flocked to the town. We walked the arc of the cove and then turned into the town through another enormous tunnel cut through the base of the mountain, linking the seafront and the town behind the mountain. Tiny streets fanned off a little town square and wriggled their way up the mountain. we walked the waterfront area and found a tiny greengrocer selling Nicosia grapes. We bought a bagful. they tasted so sweet and were richly aromatic. While we photographed and oohed and ahhed at every beautiful detail, the locals just trudged past it all, seeming hardly to notice the beauty of the sights.  They simply went about their work, buying vegetables and groceries, stopping to chat to a neighbour, taking their dog for a walk. They did all this in the presence of an enormous hulking mass of a mountain that barely seemed to tolerate or be affected by their presence. We bought some panini and returned to the seafront to a form perched in the elbow of the bay which afforded us a wonderful view along the seafront and across to the next cove. We had just settled into our picnic when a breathless woman rushed up to us, unleashing a torrent of incomprehensible Italian at us. I put up my hands in confusion, wondering if picnics were not allowed here but all she did was repeat what she said. Eventually she walked off speaking loudly and a bit crossly into her phone. There are nutters the world over.

From here we caught the train to Vernazza. As with previous train journeys along the Cinque Terre, there were loud and repeated  announcements warning us that there WILL be pickpockets on the train and around the area and to take precautions to guard our belongings. Despite this we were perfectly safe and so was our stuff. The walking and climbing was starting to take its toll on me and we stopped in the main pathway into town for an ice cream and a breather. We then walked on through the town and found another of those vertical staircases that carried us up into the jumble of houses that clung to the mountain sides. Some looked like they had barely been touched over the last 400 years. Others looked quite fresh and contemporary.   Upward, ever upward we went. Eventually the handrails disappeared and the steps hewn out of blocks of a bluish tone, became larger and more difficult to take in a normal stride. Our hearts rose when the path suddenly levelled out but the respite was brief as it pitched up again. No matter how far we climbed up, there always seemed to be higher ground above us and astonishingly, over the last 400 years or so, people had terraced the upper reaches and planted vines and vegetables up there. 

I went up a considerable way but eventually my notorious fear of heights did get the better of me at one point and resting in a doorway. I gave Johnny my camera to take further up. He came back astonished at what he’d seen. A farmer had rigged up a kind of monorail affair that rose vertically against the cliff and could carry a single seated person up to the highest terraces. Truly this was a mad death-defying thing to do.  Climbing back down to sea level we walked around the little harbour to where a little team of builders had erected a perilous scaffold against the face of a huge black cliff and with the ocean swirling and crashing below them, they were conducting running repairs on a concrete wall about 40 metres above the water. Walking back around the cove, we snoozed for a while on a form near the water before returning to the train. In the main street, in a prominent place was a memorial to the townspeople who had been affected by the devastating floods and landslides of 2011. The floods had wrought massive destruction in the town, wiping away whole buildings and leaving sections of the town no more than a quagmire. The current beauty and order of Vernazza was a testament to the resilient spirit and determination of the local people.

The day proved really exhausting for me and I begged Johnny for us to return to Lerici. A train ride and car journey still wearing my beanie from the walk. It was three hours later when Johnny woke me to go to dinner. It was the most wonderful, deep sleep and I really needed it. Johnny soldiered on exploring options for future accommodation and booking hotels.

Though we planned to go to the Gulf of Poets restaurant as we had last night, it was unexpectedly closed. Instead we went to a.cheerful looking waterfront place with outdoor heaters.  A great bear of a man served us with an entrée of smoked swordfish and salad and then tortellini with a creamy ham sauce. It was just what the doctor ordered. It was a short drive back to the hotel but as we pulled up and parked, Johnny noticed he’d left his backpack at the restaurant and dashed back to recover it.

A quick coffee in our room and we were soon in bed. We would be heading for Siena early next morning and we needed to sleep and rest.