A:

Sunday

Sadly we had to leave our lovely little Rome apartment after four wonderful weeks. It was time to head to the Cinque Terre for two nights, staying in an apartment in Riomaggiore.

This involved a taxi to Termini, a pre- booked train to La Spezia and another to Riomaggiore. In all the train travel took four hours and was uneventful.

Once in Riomaggiore we had to follow directions given by Agostino by email to La Scogliera (The Reef) at Salita Castello, 178 and of course this involved a number of stairs- 114 of them to be exact, down and then up. (M: From the station, through a tunnel, down some stairs to the marina and slip, then up three very narrow flights until we arrived. This was less a street than a ladder!). If you follow the link above, go to The Apartment and there is a picture of the building with our place marked.

Thanks to Mick for carrying our main luggage all that way. We found 178 and rang the bell but nobody appeared. The instructions were to ring the door bell of 174 up a few more steps if that happened, and just as I was about to do so a man arrived with a load of toilet paper for number 174. He introduced himself as Paolo, Agostino's brother. His mother lives in 174. He brought us into our unit and we were blown away- what a stunning view. The bathroom, kitchen and bedroom all look straight down into the harbour, and with the current big seas we got a fabulous show of spray on the breakwater with the constant boom of waves breaking and the surge of their ebb and flow about 15 metres below us. And as if that wasn't enough, the place was neat as a new pin, and spotlessly clean.

M:

Paolo, our landlord, obviously loves a chat, and more so when he discovered I could speak a bit of Italian. We switched into that language and he gave us the grand tour. He then told us that today is his mother's birthday and he has prepared the pesto himself- a Ligurian specialty. He said he would bring us some for our dinner at 6pm and we gratefully accepted this generous offer. I wasn't sure whether the offer was for the full meal of pasta, potatoes and pesto, or just the pesto. I thought we should wing it!

At this time of year a lot of businesses have obviously closed for their holidays, and the town seems very quiet indeed, but that is something of a relief after the Roman traffic. These Cinque Terre towns are on such steep slopes that vehicular traffic is not only difficult, it is excluded except for special cases, so the only challenge is getting up and down slopes and steps. Every corner reveals a new vista of new alleyways, steps, terraced hillsides or ocean. And the ocean was putting on a show, with waves crashing into the breakwater and splashing metres into the air.

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The walls around this town have lots of murals depicting and honouring the forefathers who toiled to create the town out of the cliff. They were all done by the same artist, Silvio Benedetto, an Argentinian who obviously really fell in love with this place. Some of these murals now look a little worse for wear, but the Rick Steves book indicates that there may be plans for restoration. We wanted to buy milk and bread but there were no grocery shops open- even later in the day. (M:This put paid to any possibility of our getting pasta and potatoes!) We had a (not fantastic by Italian standards) pizza at La Lampara which was just about the only show in town but on a Sunday in December we considered ourselves lucky.

Our plan was to buy a Cinque Terre card with train travel to use tomorrow. We would need this to do the famous Sentiero Azzurro (blue track) walk from Riomaggiore through Manarola, Coniglia, Vennazza and Monterosso and get the train back. I asked at the Tourist Information centre about opening hours to ensure we were able to do this and was told they open on at 8am. (Many businesses close on Monday so it was wise to check.)

We returned empty handed as we could not even buy milk. Paolo turned up at 6pm as promised with a bag of goodies. He had the home -made pesto and parmesan in two containers and a bottle of home -made red wine for us. He was also carrying another bag. When he realised we didn't even have pasta (M: I said we were going to use the pesto the next day) he produced some spaghetti and also potatoes from his bag. (M: He was obviously a keen chef, and had very detailed instructions about how everything should be cooked. When he realised that the flat only had granulated salt, he said that would not do and immediately went upstairs to borrow a cup of the good, rock salt, from his mother.)

A:

Paolo explained that we should part cook the potatoes in the water, then add the pasta and finally the pesto before serving. Mick asked how his mother was and he replied that she has a knee problem. We have no idea how some one with a bad knee could possibly manage around here! We chatted for a while which he clearly loves to do.

M:

He was very interested - like many around the world - in the whole notion of long service leave. The Italians effectively have something similar, but it doesn't automatically translate into leave. They have what they call the "tredicesimo" - a thirteenth month of pay received each year. He had had an Aussie family stay a few weeks previously when the seas were flat and it was still good weather for swimming.

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He mentioned the terrible floods in Vernazza and Monterosso on October 25th which we only recently became aware of. They happened the day we left Canada, and then in Malta we didn't see papers or news. Paolo said he has lived here all his life- 47 years- and never has seen such a thing.

M:

These two Cinque Terre villages- Vernazza and Monterosso, like most of the others, were built astride a mountain stream that flowed down into the sea. At one time, there were two sides to each village, connected by a series of bridges over the stream. Over the years, the streams were absorbed into the stormwater system, and were buried under roads. During the October floods, the volume of water was so great that the roads basically exploded, and the lower parts of the towns were inundated. In the case of Vernazza, there was a massive mudslide which buried buildings up to the first floor, and 6 people died. We were to see something of this on Monday and have a couple of pictures of the state of damage even 6 weeks after the event.

Paolo left us to join his family. Having followed his instructions to the letter, we had our own little party. The pesto certainly deserved the title of local specialty! Oh, and did we mention the bottle of slightly sparkling red wine that came with the makings, and the little bottle of home made limoncino that had been awaiting us on arrival? A feast for royalty.

Monday

A: We slept well, serenaded by the sound of the waves pounding the rocks just outside. This was a different experience to hearing motor scooters and cars as we have for the last five weeks. In the absence of supplies, breakfast was Italian style at the Bar Centrale- the only place serving breakfast - cappuccino and a "pasta" ie what I think we would call a Danish pastry. Then we headed off to buy our tickets for the planned walk to Monterosso. (M: There is a fee because this is a national park) We were told that we could walk only to Manarola, the next town 800 metres away, but the path from there on is closed due to the storm damage previously mentioned. Thus, no need for a ticket. A last minute and necessary change of plan and we decided to walk to Manarola and then get the train to Monterosso and back. Since we decided not to come to the Cinque Terre in 1985 as Florence was so interesting, we were really looking forward to doing this walk and so this news was very disappointing.

M:

The walk to Manarola started off very wet and windy, but abated fairly quickly as we walked the stretch of the path known as the Via dell'Amore. In typical Italian style, what had started as the usual mindless graffiti in places that deserve better became a real feature of the walls along the pathway. Now the graffiti has become its own attraction, and every fixture to which it is possible to attach padlocks (lucchetti) seems to have sprouted them, marked with the names of the lovers pledging fidelity.

A:

Manarola was another picture post card, as is Riomaggiore even in the poor conditions. We walked around the tiny town and then on to the surrounding vineyards. (M: These seem to cling to the steep hillsides, defying gravity as they share some of the space in their hand hewn terraces with the occasional lemon or orange tree. Looking up the hillside on the far side of town we spotted the figures for what we realised was an illuminated nativity scene we had seen in posters.) We headed up the side of what felt like a a small mountain to check it out. We clambered up a large number of quite steep and sometimes uneven steps, largely made of the local slate for a wonderful view of the town, and a close up of the presepe which has over 300 pieces, each made from recycled materials. Just as we were heading back down we heard a cheery "Buongiorno" and an old man carrying some wire and an umbrella greeted us cheerily. We had thought we were alone up on the hillside.

M:

Our aged friend seemed in the mood for a chat. He asked what we thought of the presepe. We expressed admiration. I asked who had made it. He had - alone, and this was the 50th year he had performed the feat! Just walking up that hill was a triumph of the will, never mind making hundreds of illuminated figures and wiring the lot of them at the age of at least 70 we would guess. I asked if we could get a picture of him. He very willingly agreed - see the result! In an effort to get his name, I offered mine. He echoed it, but didn't proffer his. Anne offered hers. He was charmed. Still no name.

I indicated that we had planned to come back in the evening to see it lit up, but he regretted to inform us that it wouldn't be lit until December 8th, the very anniversary of the first lighting 50 years ago. At this stage I lost track of tenses, so he either told me that there had been special trains that day with all kinds of dignitaries, or that there would be on THIS December 8. Anyway - it was a big deal. He invited us into his workshop - a hut just under the peak of the hill, and lit up a part of the scene - just for us. While the effect is not strong in the daylight, the gesture was lovely! He said he regretted he could not offer hospitality way up there. We thanked him profusely and started the descent. It reminded us both of an encounter we had had with an old Greek farmer on Siphnos in 1984. He had no English. We had a phrasebook with things like "Do you have a room with hot water?" We were well off the tourist track, up in the hills, when Stigournos (we think that was his name) called us over, and offered us coffee and cigarettes (impolite to refuse either the fags or the dirty cups), and we shared some bread we had. A little research later, after this encounter, on the trusty Kindle revealed that we had been speaking with one Mario Andreoli, who had promised his father to replace the cross on the family property, and has been adding figures ever since. Apparently after recovery from a rare illness he has worked even harder. He also sets it up for Easter - the Last Supper, the stations of the cross, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection. When I had tried to ask him who would take over from him, I guess I wasn't clear in my question and didn't get an answer. (A: So he is in fact quite well known in this area and we were most fortunate to run into him today.) Follow the Mario Andreoli link for some nice pictures of Manarola and the presepe.

The path along the hillside took us through more fields of vines, then to the town cemetery, like many Australian coastal towns, on the best headland for miles. All the while the rain came and went, but without interfering with the progress.

Back in town we just missed a train to Monterosso, so we went back to a café for coffee, then returned to catch the (by now 10 minutes late and counting) train.

As we passed through Vernazza, we caught a glimpse of the devastation. It seems that the worst of the metres of mud had been removed, but it was slow work since it all has to be removed by sea. I don't know what we expected to see in Monterosso. The area round the station looked ok, but once we hit the old town we could see that things were still not right. Not a single business was open. The ground floors of most buildings had been completely emptied. There were teams of workers deployed around the place, some still clearning, others in the early stages of repair. As we walked further into the town, you could see where the mountain stream had finally thrown off the shackles of the drain. The whole of the main street looked like it had simply exploded for about 100 metres. Even after the clean up, it is hard to get your head around the power that would have taken. A similar thing had happened with one of the smaller tributaries under a laneway higher up in the town. I've included a few pictures.

Thinking that things might be better in the new town, we retraced our steps, but it was pretty much the same story there. We had lunch at the railway bar - one of only two shows in town, but with the better view. Train back to Riomaggiore (where the sun was shining - although it proved to be brief!) uphilled and downdaled - and uphilled again- to the apartment, and spent an hour or so on odds and ends.

So, having missed out 27 years ago, we finally got to the Cinque Terre. In a somewhat abbreviated version of the walk, we managed to get a good look at two towns, and a look at the damage in a third. Looks like we will have to come back some other time to do the full walk!

Back in Riomaggiore, we knew one of the shops that sold groceries would be open at 4. When we went back out, it was open, but only had food - and not things like toilet paper. The two Coop shops were closed, and I had hardly finished wondering why both would be closed on the same day, when I realised that at least one would be open at 5. That seemed like a good excuse for a drink - beer and red wine at Bar Centrale (billed as the centre of night life here in Riomaggiore), and a paper. Groceries were bought, in particular chocolates to thank Paolo, and we returned to the apartment. We had had only a light lunch and had walked quite some distance - both vertically and horizontally - so were pretty hungry. We decided to eat at a most un-Italian time. Rather than throw out the uneaten portion of Paolo's bounty from yesterday, we added a bit more pasta and tucked in - delicious again!

Two weeks until the girls get here!