Italy 2007 – Cinque Terre (Part I)
The trip to Cinque Terre was one of the portions of the trip I was a little nervous about. When I went there in 2002, we took the train and it drops you right in the middle of each town. Every guidebook on the planet strongly recommends against driving there – because each town is located at the bottom of a narrow, steep, switchback-laden trail. Oh yeah, and there’s no parking. So – what did we do?
We rented a car in Venice and drove there.
The journey there was uneventful enough – we left Venice early and journeyed several hours across Italy. We passed right through Modena on the way – but didn’t see any Ferraris. When we got to La Spezia, we left the freeway and ascended in to the hills. Though Cinque Terre is only a few miles as the crow flies from La Spezia, it’s 45 minutes to get there because of the roads. We quickly started to see why.
The road on top of the hill isn’t too bad – but as you get closer to the Cinque Terre, it gets much more treacherous. We were warned to watch for uphill traffic – and it was obvious why. The roads aren’t two lanes wide – and trying to downshift on a steep switchback and make the corner while passing another car heading in the opposite direction is difficult to say the least. On more than one occasion I killed the engine on a switchback and said a few things I hope William doesn’t repeat. I got very familiar with using the handbrake to start uphill with a manual transmission.
When we reached Vernazza at about 4:00 PM, I had to find our lodging and figure where to park the car. Martina – our innkeeper – had her father lead us up a very steep (30 degrees, or so it seemed) and narrow sidewalk that was barely one car wide to their parking spot. It was an angled cutout in a stone wall with an inch to spare on each side of the car. After schlepping all of our luggage down the hill to the harbor, we hauled it back up a narrow steep staircase to our fourth floor room at ‘Rooms di Martina Callo‘ right on the harbor. It was a simple but nice room with two beds overlooking the harbor.
Our room was on the top floor of the yellow building in the center
Before going to dinner, we had some focaccia and wine at the Blue Marlin bar. Our dinner that night was the best meal of the entire trip. We ate at Ristorante Incadase da Piva in Vernazza just up the street from the harbor. We ordered Piva’s signature risotto con frutti di mare (seafood risotto) and it was to die for. It was a divine savory rice stew with bits of seafood all served in a hot crock. All in all, the dish was like a big warm hug. Along side the risotto, we had some pesto gnocchi that was also top notch. Of course, this was washed down with some great Cinque Terre white wine.
Piva serving his seafood risotto
The next morning, we woke up and wandered up the street to Il Pirata delle Cinque Terre for pastries. We tried to get going early so we could hike the length of the Via del Amore’- but we missed the train and decided not to wait the hour for the next one. To make sure we didn’t finish in the dark, we postponed the rugged Vernazza – Monterosso al Mare leg of the trail for the next day. Our new plan was to hike from Vernazza to Manarola where we’d meet mom & William – then we’d all stroll together down the easy section to Riomaggiore.
The Corniglia harbor at night
That’s a story for another day..
All pictures are now online at: link