CinqueTerra, day 2
Today's plan was to hit the southernmost 3 towns from north to south, possibly hiking the final leg, and then cruise back to Levanto on a boat. Ambitious, but doable. I slept a good 8 hours, but woke up hourly for no good reason, so... I wasn't at my best. Oh well, I've long ago accepted that much of my life will be dumb things I've trapped myself into doing, so it's best not to think about it once the moment for action arrives. Nothing to it but to do it, as we squids say.
We started around 8, and got to the train station 5 minutes before our train, which was cancelled. The swiss woman next to us said the previous two had also been cancelled, and being swiss, she was QUITE IRATE about it. It's ok though! She spoke to the station manager who assured us that the next train would not be cancelled, as it was coming from the other end of the tracks, instead of the side with the problem. But, you know, it was 15+ minutes late. Not really a problem, and it let my little brother run all the way back to the hotel to pick up something he forgot, making it onto the train with almost a full minute to spare!
Anyways, three trains of people jammed onto the train like sardines, and we rode down to Corniglia! Corniglia is the smallest of the terras, and we figured we'd knock it out pretty quick and move on to the next. The town is on the edge of the cliff, a the sole terra without a harbor, and a few hundred feet above the train station... but with a few hours of travelers all jammed onto one train we couldn't make it to the shuttle bus in time. Ethan and his wife set off to climb the staircase, and my parents, faced with the prospect of waiting in the already-hot sun for the next shuttlebus or climbing a few hundred feet in stairs, chose to walk up the bus-road instead. I followed, since I didn't want to be the lame one to wimp out, and a ramp sounded better than stairs. On the plus side we did get to walk right under one of the monorail-tractors and check out the gears underneath. Side Note: None of my laundry had dried even a little, so my choices today were a black dress shirt or a black polo. And slacks. It was so freaking hot. We stayed in the shade where we could, but the sunny stretches were miserable. That's going to be one of the defining memories of this town for me, which is too bad because it was pretty cute. Hiking a half mile in the humid sun before I'd even had my caffeine for the day. [Editor Brice: The pain has faded over time. I'd do it again without thinking twice].
Anyways - the town is super cute. We stopped in the church, walked (up more stairs, obvs) up the "main street" of the town which would be an alley in any other Terra and a fire escape in most US cities, and out to the various lookout-points which all had great views of the town. On our way back down, we ran into Ethan and Hannah, checked out the school badminton/volleyball/soccer court, complete with fencing to keep the ball from falling into the ocean 300 feet below, and then grabbed a brunch of pizza, foccacia, and Coke, that sweet sweet nectar of the Gods. Heading back to the train station we elected to take the stairs this time, and they were mild stairs - little ankle-high nothings instead of the knee-nigh bastards we'd come to expect - but there were switchbacks full of them, fully exposed to the sun. Like I said, I think I ruined this town for myself. Or the sun did. I'll blame Jupiter, that's never worked out poorly for anyone in Italy.
After some minor typical train delays we made it the 5 minutes ride (vs a 2hr hike) to Manarolla. This was a more typical Terra, and the train station was thankfully in the town! Only a few flights of stairs needed! That said... it was a rather steep town. Between the sun, the schedule, and tonight's wine it's sort of blurred in my mind with Riomajjorie, but I'm gonna do my best. Instead of stairs, we had a long tunnel my Mom referred to as the tunnel of love, but I mostly remember it for the graffiti covering the artistic shots of birds. From a seagull saying "sqaaaaACAB" to a pigeon with a mustache, the sharpies had had their way with the promotional posters. Said Tunnel D'el Amore disgorged us right below the town square, but instead of walking down to the harbor like normal people, we instead headed straight up the mainstreet - essentially a continuous bridge covering the stream that used to run down the center of the valley, and up into the hillside. We checked out a church or something, probably, almost definitely, that's always what we do. They're all blurring together.. in retrospect, I was severely dehydrated at this point. There were some cool views of the town, which had the same fairybook pastel quiltwork look that Vernazza had, complete with some ancient fortifications and such. To switch it up, instead of terracotta rooves they went with slate shingles... but due to the brutal storms which can hit the coast about half the houses had large rocks on top of their shingles - purely to prevent them from blowing away. It was a massively vertical town, each house several stories above the previous. We went north out of town following (vaguely) Rick Steves' advice, into the vineyards, and hiked a portion of the 5terra trail that links all the towns together, except we turned left instead right once we'd circumnavigated the town, turning back to the cliffs over the sea - which would have taken us down the landslide-closed trail back to Corrmiglioli (I've given up learning their names, and where I get them right in this blog, it's because I've corrected them while editing [Editor: I'm not fixing them]. In my head I call them numbers, when I talk to others I call them by something vaguely resembling their names. I later learned my aunt and uncle had given up as well and had their own names for the towns. Manarola? Motorola. Rigamiorre? Rigatoni). Turning left and back towards the harbor, we finally caught a nice sea-breeze and a great view of the ocean lapping against the cliffs. As a climber, I love cliffs, which is probably why I started paying attention again at this point. Instead of taking the stairs straight down to the harbor, however, we veered off around a cemetery. Apparently they put them on top of hills here. Possibly because of flooding? I dunno but it's definitely the thing to do. This gave us better views of the harbor and a more gradual (less stairs!) path, and wrapped down around the outside of the point to a secondary harbor. At this point, we were finally in shade again. Dad and Ethan decided to go swimming to the dismay of my mother, but I didn't want to risk wet clothes all day and instead just walked down to the water and enjoyed shade and not moving. It was nice.
Eventually we finished out the route, ending up back in the harbor. I ran down the boat ramp, side-stepping sunbathers, to look up the stream that had become a road, but it was pretty lame and only a small trickle from a disappointingly small tube. I'd hoped for something that could be, at least theoretically, hiked up. Not a few garden-hoses worth of water and a tunnel too shallow to crawl comfortably in... but admittedly, I'm weird.
We still had our EVERY CINQUE goal, so we checked the schedule. 2pm. There was a train in 20 minutes (allegedly, but you know, be a shame to miss it if the next 3 were cancelled). So what did we do? We went for gelato. 15 minutes to make a 20minute hike and we decided to go for gelato. Maybe this was why I turned my brain off and decided it wasn't my problem. Turns out the train was 7 minutes late so really we were 9 minutes early, and we were down the tracks to the final Cinque, Rigamarole' !
Rigamarole' also had a tunnel from the train station to the town. Which is fair, with these small towns it'd be a shame to ruin the vibe by ripping up the main town square for a train station. This time, we thought ahead, and plotted out the end of the journey instead of mindlessly walking up the steepest road we could find. Which is apparently what we do. I dunno, protestant work ethic, the association of suffering and exercise, and inability to sit still... for some reason, it's what we do. If there are no roads: bell towers, hiking trails, the Cliffs of Moor, the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde, anything will do. In fact, just click to a random trip in this blog and I bet we're doing some arduous task for tenuous reasons. Also, this white wine is great. Back to topic: We got ferry tickets! We were told by our new step-aunt that the boatride is the only must-do in Cinqueterra, and also a boat ride doesn't involve walking up stairs, so we booked a boat-ride! The ferry to take us back to Levanto (6the Terra, where our apartment is), was stupid cheap, and we let that set our schedule. And while we were buying tickets and watching the cliff jumpers across the harbor, our aunt and uncle wandered up! They had just finished touring the town and stumbled upon us. We explained our plans, invited them to dinner, and they went off to hit their 5th cinque, cormigiglglgio (aka #3, our first of the day), promising to make it back before 5:15.
At this point, we were prettymuch all burned out on the cinques. Another church, another harbor, another paved-over river to make mainstreet.... we'd seen it before. So we decided to do what we'd done in Venice, and just randomly wander whatever ridiculous stupid alley looked appealing (which was most of them, on account of the shade!). We dialed it back slightly on account of all the fafsdafdsing stairs, so we'd nominate my brother or I to go on ahead as a runner, and then we'd give a shout if it "was a thing" / "goes", or return if it didn't. This was way more fun, and before we knew it, we were half the way up the far-too-steep mainstreet that ran through town. Plus, the alleys were narrow, which meant precious shade. Up at the 2/3rds mark was a church, so we figured we might as well hit that before we turned around. It was another church. Slighltly better than most with better marble work, but just another church. At this point, Ethan and Hannah split off to go get a glass of wine, tired of this same game. My parents and I noticed that we were at the same elevation of the other church, and decided we might as well check it out. This church was definitely above par. Great marble work, some good statues, and "The only painting done by a Cinqueterran master, who we still don't know who is". The art was meh, but I love the idea of a master who came out of nowhere to paint a work rivalling the contemporary greats for his home church, didn't sign his name, and disappeared forever.
Even better than the church (which was pretty good, I enjoy a well-done cathedral), was the elevator next to it. We were apprehensious.... could this really be free? Would this trap us into taking more stairs? It seemed too good to be true. But, you know, f--- it send it see what happens. So we called the elevator. And it opened. And there was no coin slot. And we went 100 feet straight up, with glass walls at the top, to the summit of the town. Apparently the elevator was built by the church to bring locals to mass, it still feels too good to be true, but it was awesome. Now on top of the town, we walked down a flat road to the castle overlooking the harbor, where my parents and I parted ways. I wanted to slide down the stairs into random alleys and guess my way back to the harbor, they wanted to journey back to the miraculous elevator and wend their way back down the main street (aka ramp). I only made a few wrong turns, ending up in peoples gardens or at their basement doors, but that's the fun of wandering. I made it back to the harbor even quicker than I expected, leaving me about an hour until ferry-time.
I once again hiked down to the mouth of a harbor, once again checking the mouth of the paved-over river. This one was even lamer, a trickle flowing into a pipe before heading out to sea, not even flowing into the harbor. Probably resulting in a cleaner harbor, the bulk of the river was diverted out various pipes, presumably from various elevations along the road above. But lamer by far than a sub-road river, especially as someone with a softspot for hydrology and subterranean exploration. So I hiked out the breakwater instead, scampering from rock-to-rock picking the route and proper foot placements as I went at almost a jogging pace, matching my moves to my stride for maximum efficiency and speed, and which resulted in great views of the town across the harbor and a decent view of the beach around the corner of the point. It was a blast, so I decided to repeat the trick across said beach, heading a quarter-mile around the coast. I realized as I did so that this was a flow-state for me. I was good at it, it was moderately risky without being distratctingly risky (afterall, I'm great at this shit), and it was difficult enough to require my full attention. Years of stream-hiking and river-hiking had prepared me for this and it was glorious. The view wasn't even good from the beach, but I loved every second of it.
I was so efficient, in fact, I made it back to town with a half-hour to spare before the prearrainged rally time. So I got a beer, posted up on a wall over the townsquare/harbor, and just people-watched and chilled. The net result was that this ended up being my favorite terra, followed closely by Verranza, Near rally-time I spotted my parents and joined them as they headed over to the ferry dock. They'd met Ethan and Hannah shortly after we split up, and sent them on the trail towards the church of miraculous ascension, and then we met my aunt and uncle, all reunited in time for the ferry. This is where we had a stroke of genius. The stairs to the ferry were divided into an entrance and an exit, divided by a railing. We watched the prior ferry devolve into chaos as people attempted to use both as entrances, entirely screwing the people who were in the correct ferry line. We were in the correct ferry line, and my father suggested setting a pick (in basketball terms) at the top of the exit stairs, to prevent line-jumpers from stealing the good seats from the rest of the family. This evolved as my brother repurposed a cord tied to the stairs into a "exit closed" block. But what one man can tie, another can untie. I escalated the ruse to it's final form, sitting on top of the knot in my black corporate polo, looking like I was supposed to be there, taking one for the team as my family got good seats in the hope that they'd save me one. I even (mostly-correctly) helped some Japanese tourists who had questions about the ferry schedule and ticket office location. It was a weird blend of my rule-following upbringing/family and my current anarchism, and it worked perfectly. We all had seats on the back of the boat near the stairs to the primo-seats on top, and they saved me a spot on top of the life preservers. When we left Rogasdfasdf ( aka CinqueCinco) we realized the back of the boat was one of the best spots, as during it's trek away from the city we got perfect views of the harbor, the city, and the landscape. After #4, when a few people left the ferry, we ran upstairs. There were only a few seats and again I was stuck in the last row. The perfect row. I rode the rest of the trip in the last row, on the top, shooting photos with my wide-angle lens and my tighter-zoomed phone, and it was awesome. It was a perfect recap of our time in CinqueTerra, as we moved up the coast and back in time through the last two days, visiting each town in turn and capturing the perfect shots as we left them behind. We pulled our aunt and uncle up with me to the perfect row and as we rounded the horn to Levanto (6the Terra) we could see all 5 behind us, a perfect panorama of memories.
I know that was the perfect stopping place, but oh well, real life's not perfect. We pulled into port at levanto, watched some small children jump off cliffs that are honestly higher than any I've ever done, and headed to the hotel to freshen up before dinner. Adam (bro #2) and Dani (wife #1) had gotten in earlier from their quest to hike from #5-#1, and they had reservations for us at a nearby restaurant. And by nearby, I mean literally nextdoor. Seven, maybe 8 feet from our front door to theirs. But they had reservations for 7 people, and weren't prepared for the sudden arrival of two more family members. But instead of a 9, the restaurant could take a 5 and a 4, so we split up along generational lines (and more accurately, I suspect, adventurous taste-bud lines) and had two great dinners. We had lemoned anchovies (which I adore, surprisingly, considering I despise canned anchovies), prawns, mussels, clams, razorclams, gnocci, and all the bread and pasta they would give us. The highlight of the dinner was surprising the "adults" with a few deserts ordered to their table (after all, my aunt and uncle were the ones who ultimately made this whole trip happen!) - Biscotti and Sweet Dessert wine to dip them in. The waitresses didn't communicate that it was a surprise, and my mom tried to refuse the meal "No no nono no" and then as the waitress came back we all caught her "Si si siiiiii si si!" They devoured the biscotti, and sent back one of the glasses of sugary-sweet wine with random cookies and pretzels (from my mom's fanny pack) to dip them in.
That's it. Packing, some dry laundry, some not, and blogging as the rest have gone to bed from their busy days and I hijack my insomnia for an authentic relation of my experience, if not the actual events of the day. Tomorrow we leave at 6:30am for Rome. It would have been 7:00, but you can't trust the trains.
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