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In La Spezzia, the gateway to the Cinque Terre, we got on a subway-looking train filled with people in swimsuits with beach gear. Ten minutes into the ride, we saw the aquamarine Ligurian Sea flickering past us through arches in the tunnel. A storm was moving in, darkening the sky and water, but cooling it down enough that it was almost tolerable being outside.
The Cinque Terre was five little towns, each nestled in a ravine on the ocean, each with a castle, vineyards and a population of 200-500. There were no roads to four of the five towns, and no resort hotels in the same four. The only way to get there was to take a milk-run train from La Spezzia, to the south, or Genoa, to the north. Each of the five towns was connected to the other by train, boat, and hiking path, and each was within fairly easy walking distance of the other. We chose to stay in Vernazza, the fourth town in from La Spezzia, on the advice of our guidebook, Hari's friend Paul and Eric's friend Marisa, each of whom said the Cinque Terre was the most beautiful place ever. Which it was.
The main street in Vernazza was a colorful hodegepodge of people and markets, with one or two slow-moving cars, and flowers hanging in all the windows. The street was surfaced with wide stones, meaning we made a terrible racket with our rolling suitcases.
Everyone was renting rooms. People asked from the street if we needed one. Most businesses did two or three things -- the bar owner also operated the laundry next door and the Internet point across the street, restaurant owners rented rooms and drove taxis to the nearby town. People with nothing to do spilled out onto the streets, where they sat on the steps and talked and gestured at each other and every passing local. At night, the old men would line up on the steps like a group of conspiring teenagers in collared, striped shirts, laughing and slapping each other and talking loudly.
We stashed our bags at the end of the street, up five flights of stairs and another spiral staircase, in a small but cozy room with a small window and a grand view. We had to climb a little two-step box to look out, but the view stretched all the way to Monterosso, the next town to the north. In the morning sunshine, we could look out over the window and down on the perfect harbor water, where we could see the shadows of the small fleet of rowboats like they were floating on air.
The first part of the storm came while we napped. When it cleared up, we went down to explore the swimming hole. Because of the storm, the waves would swell up and push over the breakwater, depositing skilled swimmers on top without a finger flexed in climbing. The people in the water made it look so easy that Eric decided to give it a try - and found it was not so easy.
This is how it worked (Eric here. Hi.):
First of all, when the wave came, it lifted me up, but then I'd lose sight of the rocks, meaning I had to grab out wildly for them. If I didn't get it and hop right out, I held on, thinking I could just pull up and climb back, but the surface was too slippery, so I fell back into the water. In minutes, my hands and feet were cut and bleeding from the surprisingly sharp rocks. I never managed a graceful exit, although I dove in and got out four times. I kept getting my hands on late, and so getting stranded when the waves receded. From there, I'd usually be far enough to pull myself up (I could get my stomach over the ledge before the wave went down - just not my feet). It was great fun.
After swimming, I showered at the foot of the breakwater, standing hip-deep in the ocean as surges came in and pushed up against the shower corner. It felt very odd to have water running down, and then all of a sudden a swell would come in, and because the shower was in the corner it felt like the swell was coming from below, and lifting me up, like standing on top of a sewer hole when a geyser comes out.
We had a tremendously cheerful waiter for dinner under the umbrellas in the harbor square. Although we did everything in Italian, we managed to get what we wanted. This included a full bottle of wine (locally grown and produced, as each restaurant had its own brand), which Hari, who didn't feel well, would not help drink.
Since everyone recommended the seafood, Eric skipped the caprese (Hari didn't) for the catch of the day, an unknown fish the waiter described as "bellisima!" while kissing his hand.
So then he brought out the whole fish, including the eyeballs, and left. Hari and the couple next to us were laughing, but Eric was grimly determined to cut it up like a trout, when the waiter returned. Evidently the disappearance was only for dramatic effect, as he brought back a knife and carved the fish onto a different plate.
We woke up the next morning to sunlight streaming in the window and the harbor. Also to the chorus of church bells celebrating 7:00 a.m. On the hour, the cathedral would ping out the hour. On the half hour, it would do the hour plus a higher-pitched chime. It ended at night, around midnight, and started again at 7.
We set off hiking through the vineyards for Monterosso, along a trail that was a lot like the Lost Coast in California, with steep ups and downs over breathtaking cliffs that crashed into the ocean way, way below us. The trail was well-maintained -- when it was there. It ran across the cliff, traversing each hill with little two-foot stones. Occasionally, it was wide enough to pass people going the other way. Occasionally, there were railings to keep people from walking off into the sea.
The water was so clear that even from the top we could make out the texture of the bottom. The trail cut through vineyards, so fields of grapes grew up and down the cliff. In un-fielded spots, there were blackberry bushes and small trees clinging to the side of the cliff.
It took about two and a half hours to get to Monterosso, where, unfortunately, it was Eric's turn to feel ill. We got a beach umbrella at one of the private beaches so he could sit in the shade. Monterosso, which had the only sandy beach in the Cinque Terre, was touristy, as advertised. It was still pretty though, and the water was nice.
We took the boat back, flitting across the sparkling water under soaring, puffy clouds.
The luggage check-in in La Spezzia, the departure point for our overnight trip to Paris, was closed on our final day, so we carted our bags around until our 11:30 p.m. train. We went by train to Riomaggiore, the closest town to La Spezzia, then one town north to Manarola, where we sat on a bench and looked at the pretty water for a long time.
We walked back along the path from Manarola to Riomaggiore (called the Via del Amore), for once actually wearing our backpacks.
After dinner in Riomaggiore, we had to head back to La Spezzia for our train, where we sat in the waiting room an hour while the schedule board played with our departure time. Two girls from Louisiana entertained us by talking at us, nonstop, about all the miseries of their trip. They didn't have reservations on the overnight to Paris, and were intending to get off at 4 a.m. in the middle of nowhere to transfer to somewhere else, possibly Marseille. The train finally arrived around midnight, and we were able to get on and go to bed in the nicest sleeping car all trip.
Unlike the couchette, we had our own room, with a mini-fridge, table, bench and two bunk beds. A guard kept track of who entered and left each room, so we didn't even have to worry about locking up our luggage. If it hadn't cost $120, it would have been perfect.
