Italy 8 - Cinque Terra - Monterosso & Vernazza

We started the day in our airBNB in Levanto - Not technically part of Cinque Terra, but unofficially the 6th of the 5 lands. We walked up to the train station, bought our hiking/training/bathroom pass, and took a quick ride to Monterosso Al Mare, the northern (northwestern) most of the cinque Cinque's. We got off the train, checked out the coast, and then hiked up the coast, around the point (with a handful of steps, some amazing views, and a detour to a German ww2 bunker that smelled like pee), and into the old town. It's a very cute town. We saw the statue of Guiseppe Garibaldi (who united Italy), the municipal building, and all the local shops. After that we headed to the cathedral (small and cute), and the adjacent Black Confraternio Oratio Mortis (Black Fraternity of the Prayers for the Dead) - a chapel and clubhouse for the 300 year old private society, membership passed down patrilineally, for community service, taking care of widows and shipwrecked sailors, and general pirate cosplay (the entire clubhouse was covered in skull-and-crossbone regalia).  And I, having stared into the sun the whole hike around the point, bought some cheap sunglasses off the shop across the street.

Then, perhaps against our better judgement, we set off for the local monastery on the top of the hill. This was up a lot of steps.  The monastery was pretty basic, and despite having the work of some master (Van Dyke? Vermier? [editors note: it was [I still don't care]]), was essentially like every other church we've seen. So then we did some *more* steps, up to the cemetery above the monastery - which was full of mausoleums ranging from antique and bordering on ruins to immaculate and rivaling the monastery. And then we decided to walk up some more stairs to the ruins of the castle above the cemetery, which had been converted - in it's semi-ruined state, to a mausoleum and burial ground. All the graves were relatively fresh, so my hunch is they were disinterred after 20-30 years and the bones moved to the ossuaries below. And in the corner of the castle, the last mausoleum chamber was unlocked, filled with building supplies, and had the best view in the entire town - looking across the harbor and the town square, and onto the other 4 terra's across the Lagunic sea.

So we hiked back down all those steps (technically, some of those steps and some other steps on a side path), and back into town. Ethan lead us through the streets to focacciaria and it was amazing. Cheap, salty, and delicious. Reinvigorated by this, we continued on our plan to hike the coastal trail to the Terra. This was described to us as "1h 45m, 2.7miles, harder than you expect, with lots of steps and amazing views", but we knew that Vernazza (Terra #2) was one of the cutest of the towns. Plus, "lots of vertical elevation and irregular hiking trails" is one of those phrases that really gets us going. Or at least me.  I think my dad said "If we're only going to hike one, we should hike the best one" I believe "in case it's such a stupid idea we don't do it again" was left implied, but we could read between the lines. Possibly not my mom, but the rest of us understood the lay of the land, especially with his knee due for replacement any year now. 

Passing tourist: "Cinque Terra? No. Es Cinque Peitras"

So we headed up past the closed hotel, into the hills, and up some stairs. The beginning of the hike was very cute - lots of great views of Monterosso and only brief uphill spurts. However, once we passed the hotel and rounded the corner, it was all stairs. Something like 300ft of elevation in a quarter mile. We slowed down, took breaks, and about 90% of the way up my Mom almost gave up. We started doing a dozen steps at a spurt, and at one point I left my bag and went ahead to scout out and make sure the rest of the hike (we were 30m into 1:45 hike) wasn't like this.  But it turns out the 30 visible steps were the last of the climb (baring 2 a hundred yards later), and as I got back to share the good news Mom was topping out!

The next hour was far better. Essentially flat, along a trail that ranged from narrow and wide, rock and dirt and occasionally wood, through vineyards and forests, and with amazing views and a cool sea breeze. At one point, we passed a man who set up all day on top of the mountain to play the accordion for spare change. Also very cool were the monorail tracks that ran through the vineyards, used to haul grapes from the harvests up the steep hillsides - rack gears on the bottom and presumably a pinion in the tractor.  At one point we passed a cat sanctuary, but in the heat of the day they were all absent, presumably off sleeping in the underbrush or chasing the ubiquitous small lizards. At one point a lizard launched itself fully over the trail, clearing the entire distance, as another lizard emerged from the underbrush chasing it.

Finally, Vernazza came into view. My first thought was "omg, I built this puzzle". Vernazza is a beautiful tiny town, with multicolored pastel houses, a protected harbor, and a medieval fort overlooking the harbor. Because it is so very picturesque, it makes it's way into a lot of artwork (such as the puzzle I'd built), and is where the movie Luca is based (says my brother, who was very excited about the fact).  And as stereotypical as it sounds to see the quaint tourist-trap town, it was beautiful and the view was gorgeous, and that's not just the endorphins talking. We still had the down-climb, which was similarly brutal, but not cardiovascularly, just on the joints. Thank God I brought my boots with me because my ankle was not happy with the downclimb, and I dawdled to baby it and also hang back with my dad who was similarly protecting his knee. But that also gave us plenty of opportunities to take pictures of the town on the way down, and as the perspective changed I took far too many pictures. Finally in the town, we turned down a narrow staircase that threaded through an alley only a few feet wide, and 100 stairs later it spit us out in the town square, two hours after we started, right on the harbor.

First things first: We refilled our waterbottles at the fountain, drained them, and refilled them again. Then we sat down for a while to rest, research the town (aka read Rick Steves), and plan our next moves. Two interesting facts. 1: 200 years ago the square didn't exist, just the harbor, and the local businesses had doors that opened right onto the water. This gave the town the name Vernazza - "Little Venice".  Which jives with my dad's estimation that this town is like Venice, if Venice replaced all their canals with stairs. Second interesting fact: the locals all banded together to kill a planned rode extension to connect the town to the others, because they feared it would bring development and change the character of the town. And to be fair, it does have a unique small-town feel that's worth protecting, so good for them.

We walked down the sea-wall and then scampered over some rocks, taking in the views of the harbor (full of swimmers) and the castle, and Ethan and I clambered out a sketchy peninsula to watch the waves crash into a cave. After we decided to get some gelato as we often do. The gelato was next to the path to the old off-harbor beach, but after the floods in 2012 and the subsequent erosion, the beach was washed away and pushed into the natural doorway in the cliff that used to lead to the beach, leaving only a scenic window.  Then, because we hadn't done enough steps today, we decided to climb the old castle! Originally used as a lookout for pirates, the castle was pretty perfunctory - essentially only a watchtower both in antiquity and currently, but still pretty cool. (History fact: The nazi's used the castle as a lookout point, so the top of it was bombed to shit in ww2 and subsequently rebuilt). If you ever do Verranza, I'd recommend going to the castle restaurant/bar for lunch or a beer, so you could chill in the shade and watch the plaza/harbor below, but I don't regret paying the 2 euro to see the top of it. 

Rather exhausted by this point, we called it on Verranza and headed to the train station. We arrived just after the train, so we jumped on it with very little verification of what it was or where it was going. It was the cinque express, it was headed in our direction, and it was leaving in 30 seconds, so we pushed through the crowds and jumped on. For whatever reason, it went only one stop and didn't continue to the town listed as it's final destination, and dropped us off in Monterosso. The conductor said to go to platform one and wait 30m for the next  cinque express, so we followed everyone else and did just that. But within minutes a different train came, and it's routing info said it went to Levanto, so we ignored the conductor and got on it instead. In retrospect, I think it was ran by another company and not covered in our daypasses, but when in Rome do as the Italians do and don't really worry about the specifics of your ticket.

Leaving the train station in Levanto we ran into Adam and Dani! They'd spent the day hiking the routes between the southernmost three towns, and by a fluke of the trains had made the same weird layover choices we had!  So we walked back to our hotel together, changed into our swimsuits, and us menfolk went for a swim in the Mediterranean.  Cool but not cold, possibly slightly saltier than the Atlantic, it was a great way to relax our tired muscles. The only real differences were 1) lots of seaweed,  2) much more crowded on the beach (but not in the water), and 3) the beach was made of pebbles. Between pea-sized and sand, all super smooth, it was a very interesting texture. I dug through the sand looking at all the different pebbles, picking out malachite, marble, granite, etc, and even sea-glass, spanning the same pea-sized to sand-sized range.

We headed home for a shower and a glass of wine, and then headed out to dinner. Our first few (pre-researched) choices were closed or not serving what we'd hoped, but our third choice ended up being across the street from last night's dinner, and it was excellent. The appetizers were delicious - the swordfish-stuffed mussels and lemon-flavored anchovies were particular highlights (weird I know, I typically dislike mussels and despise anchovies). My swordfish was delicious, and as we traded bites around the table the octopus, tuna, trofie noodles, clams, and prawns all proved to be similarly delightful. I would say this was my favorite meal in Italy so far (excluding the wedding feast, which is an obvious outlier), and that's not just the endorphins and wine talking, although I admit they may be slightly coloring my judgement. 

We then walked back to the hotel (stopping, of course, for gelato), did some laundry, journaled, I checked on my timelapse (despite being lashed to the railing with saran wrap, the gopro is at 14 hours and still kicking), and now the rest of the house has headed to bed. I'm going to grab a glass of wine, read a few chapters, and I'll be following them shortly.