Day 6 Cinque Terre Circle Hike: August 4, 2007

What a day I have had! I'm in the Cinque Terre, on the northwest coast of Italy, and it's absolutely wonderful! Today I did a walking tour around each of the 5 little coastal villages, just to see which is most worth it. It's so worth it! Both tours for next summer will definitely come here!

I slept late, and so got a late start about 10:00. I decided to take a boat to the first town and work my way back, hiking and taking the train. Counting from the East, I'm staying in the 4th town, which is Vernazza. You see my hotel room in the picture. That's my laundry handing out from the 2nd story on the right. It even had one of those cool little clotheslines on a pulley that you reel in.

I wandered down to the dock, which is really just a little seawall, and bought a ticket to Riomaggiore. Boat soon arrived and threw down the aluminum gangplank on wheels. Fortunately it has handrails! The gangplank was only about 18" wide, and there were big swells on the sea, so the ship rose and fell about 4 feet with each wave. Nobody moved to get on, so I ran up and across the gangplank. It was really fun! Other people followed. The boat probably held 75 people.

The ride only took about a half hour, and it also stopped at Manarola before arriving in Riomaggiore. I stood in the bow of the boat while it rose and fell on the waves. The sky was blue and the air was breezy and warm and the coast was glorious, and I wish you had all been on that boat with me!

This picture shows Corniglia. Each town is unique, and I followed my guidebook and walked around them all and got a pretty good idea of how cool they each are. Someone described it as "a pastel tangle of drunken houses leaning upon one another." Lovely description!

I bought several posters, which I will have to mail home tomorrow, because I am traveling with carry-on luggage only, so I don't have a full-size suitcase or my mailing tubes to carry them in. Traveling with only a carry on is much easier, since I get to haul all my own luggage!

Yesterday I bought a 2-day Cinque Terre Card for 13 Euros and thought I'd wasted my money. I only used it once, just to get here from La Spezia, which I could have done for a couple of euros. I could have saved money and only bought a one day card. Today, however, I really got my money's worth out of that card! Today I took a train between towns no less than 4 times, rode a shuttle bus up to Corniglia (which is on top of a hill so the shuttle saved me 375 stairs), rode it back down after exploring Corniglia, rode a 7 story elevator in Riomaggiore, took a 45 minute bus ride up into the hills (more on that later), and hiked between Riomaggiore and Manarola, which also costs money, but all are covered by the Cinque Terre Card. My feet are tired but I accomplished my goal, to see all 5 towns! I only actually hiked between two of the towns. You can tell by the picture that the trail along the coast is mostly paved and pretty level.

It's really prettier than the pictures can show. I stayed on a low trail when I hiked, but you can hike way up into the hills. The paved path was called "La via d' amour," or "the road of love."

I've been thinking about bringing a van here, but after the drive up in the hills and conversation with today's van driver, I think that's out. The bad news is that the road to here is only one narrow lane, and it twists around blind curves where the driver has to honk, because no one can see you coming! The good news is that Monterosso, the 5th town, has a parking lot, and you could put a van there and just take the train to Vernazza, which is, I think, the very prettiest of the 5 towns.

Got to go, this place is closing and I'm the only one left. Don't worry, the town is still hopping outside but it's 10:45 and they closed 15 minutes ago.

Day 5 Pisa & to the Cinque Terre: August 3, 2007

I think I have found heaven! Tonight I arrived in Vernazza in the Cinque Terre (Five Lands) which is 5 little towns on the North Mediterranean coast of Italy. They were only accessible by sea until the 1930's. It is so beautiful here, it really does actually look like this!

But first, the day in sequential order.

I checked out of my hotel in Rome and wrestled my bags to the main station and found my track and a very slow train to Pisa. The faster way is to take a fast train to Florence and then change to another train for Pisa. I was thinking that the slow train might be better because it was direct. Bad thinking! It stopped in every little town up the coast and it took 4 hours.
In Pisa I decided that I should run the drill to see how long it would take if I were showing my tour people. So I put my bags in Deposito Baglio, went outside and got a bus to Campo dei Miracoli (Field of Miracles) and went to visit the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I did not go up the tower this time, because I did not have a reservation, and you just can't get one in August for the same day. I wandered around and bought gelato and a Pisa purse and enjoyed the scene for a little while. It's really a circus! There were American Indian dancers set up with a big sound system and people watching and dozens of tourist stalls and a thousand tourists. It really is amazing though, and they seem to keep all the tourist stuff on one side, so it's not in your pictures and it almost preserves the atmosphere. This picture shows the old city wall around the Field of Miracles and the Tower in the distance.

The stop in Pisa took 3 hours, and I did not even go up the tower, which would probably add 2 more, including being there early for your appointment and wait time. So I should allow 5 hours.

I decided I'd had it with slow trains, so I bought a ticket for the IC Inter-City Express to La Spezia, which is where Alyssa Young served her mission and also the jumping-off point for the Cinque Terre. It only took one hour to get to La Spezia, and the ride was really cool. Kind of like the drive from Portland to Newport, Oregon crossed with fabulous Italy! Really green and mountainous, in and out of tunnels, nicer homes and wonderful!

In La Spezia I bought a 2-day train pass for the Cinque Terre, which also is your (get this, it's required) permit to hike. I hopped right back on the train and was here in Vernazza in 30 minutes, even though this is the 4th of the 5 towns. Since most of the ride is in tunnels with only glimpses of the sea, I was totally unprepared when I got off and crossed under the station, and this fabulous little one-street town appeared! It's built in a deep canyon and all the buildings are rich colors and there's a tiny little beach and I was so hot and I wished I could paint! The picture above is what I took the minute I came out of the station.

I found my room up 4 long flights of stairs that serve as an alley. The room is old and quaint and cute, with knotty pine paneling and a little kitchen. I SO want to bring you guys here! It's really just a restaurant, but they also have 4 rooms. Actually, only the son speaks English, the rest just muddle through like me in Italian, and the Mama owns it and speaks no English, but I talked to her anyway. In the picture, find the orange umbrella in the center of the picture. My room is just off a passage that goes uphill from a hole in the wall right behind that tree!

I immediately got rid of my stuff and went swimming in the little harbor-beach you see in the first picture. The water was cold and I sat on the beach for awhile and watched the late afternoon sun. I sure hope my pix turn out!

Tomorrow I want to take the train to all 5 towns and do a little hiking and maybe even rent a kayak.

Day 4 Pompeii: August 2, 2007

Today I went to Pompeii and it was both wonderful and tacky, but mostly it was HOT HOT HOT! The temp was 35° C plus humidity (about 96° F) and I walked all over the dry hill of Pompeii with no shade & getting heatstroke, but it was so worth it!

I got a bus tour that picked me up at my hotel, and put me with a bunch of other English speakers and German speakers on a big bus.

At first it was frustrating, because it's 120 kilometers from Rome to Pompeii, so they drove half way there on the autostrada (toll autobahn) and stopped at a tourist spot you see in the picture to buy coral necklaces and local wines. I had NO interest in that. From the sales job given by the tour guide, I am so sure she gets a kickback from everything we buy! I bought an ice cream and went around back to eat it and gaze at the ancient monastery on top of the distant hill.

Since our bus was English and German, I got to hear everything twice and try to understand the German, since I already knew what it meant. It was good practice, but I realize that I really only get about half of what they say, even when I know what they are saying!

Before we got to Pompeii, they took us to lunch. It wasn't a very fancy place, but we did get to eat outside under the canopy of a 100-year-old wisteria vine. Actually, since there were 3 trunks, it was probably 3 vines, and it made pretty decent shade over a trellis that covered an area probably 50 by 100 feet.

I sat at a table with a German mom and daughter from Darmstadt. Between their English and my German, we had a pretty pleasant meal. Turns out the mom is a math teacher and the daughter is 23 and studying to work with handicapped kids! Kim, I told them about you, and she said she is required to have 3 years of school and one year of practicum.

The first thing they brought us was sourdough cibatta bread, which was good, except for no butter or even olive oil to dip it in. Then came some tubular type pasta with a little tiny bit of tomato sauce. Pasta is served as either a main course or a first course here. If it's a first course, it doesn't have much on it. Then they took that away, and brought us a pretty good green salad, except the dressing was like Olive Garden's, which is too tart for me! Soon they brought 2 thin slices of pork tenderloin, which was really good. A fresh peach was dessert. Since the lunch was included in the price of the tour, I thought it was pretty good.

Then back on the bus for the short drive to Pompeii. The bus pulled into this really dumpy tourist-trap area that looked like Mexico This is where we got out. By this time it was 1:30 and hotter than a firecracker. I was really disappointed that after all the hype, this disappointing cluster of stands selling jewelry and hats and ice cream was Pompeii!

We hiked up the crowded hill, avoiding other groups as much as possible, and for 3 hours the guide gave us a round-about tour of the ruins of Pompeii. Eventually I started to realize that in spite of the heat, in spite of the trashy tourist stands, in spite of the crowds, this was really amazing! For those of you that remember Ostia Antica, Pompeii is a bigger town and more complete. It has more Roman temples, and was a richer town. Many floor mosaics and frescoes (wall paintings) still exist. Some of the frescoes are even of people.

At the time of the eruption of Vesuvius ( a couple of miles away) Pompeii was a rich resort town of 25,000. Most of the people ran down to the sea and escaped in boats. Eventually the ash covered the town 30 feet deep, and solidified over the years. Afterward the inhabitants returned and built a new town up the hill. Most of the dead were found in cellars where they died from the poison gasses. Some were slaves left behind to guard the owner's belongings.




Something really unique happened to those people. The ash eventually turned hard, but the organic bodies deteriorated and vanished, leaving behind a hole of the exact shape of the person. Archeologists have filled some of these holes with plaster (or in some cases concrete) and you can see the exact position the person was in when he died. One of the casts was of a lady with long, thick hair, obviously pregnant, and covering her mouth. She really made it real for me.

In the last picture in this post, I am on the pedestrian crossing of a two-lane chariot street. You can even see the grooves cut by the chariot wheels!

So the whole touristy trip to Pompeii turned out to be really worth it, except that it was so hot all I could do was hunt for shade!

I went to dinner at a tiny spot near my hotel in Rome. First they brought me a bottle of dry mineral water (which I like) and some more sourdough bread with a great crust. I had real homemade noodle pasta with mushrooms and a lemon cake thing that looked like doughnut holes, but they were fried and covered with lemon pudding and it was really good. What an ending to a memorable day!