Cinque Terre

So, backtracking a wee bit now, after Genova we headed down the coast to walk the Cinque Terre. 

Our apartment in Riomaggiore, built into the hill.

The owner of the apartment was away so his father took care of us, meeting us at the train station and leading the way up the hill. So friendly. After almost a week of cheap hotel rooms we were so excited to have a whole apartment to stay in - a kitchen, space to open our suitcases, a couch, amazing. Actually the apartment was a good deal bigger than the place we lived in Venice. Grand. With a view across the tops of the neighbours plentiful citrus trees to the well worked terracing on the opposite hillside, it felt like true holiday bliss.

Looking down on one half of the town from the castle above.
On the left you can see the pathway to Manarola snaking around the cliff.

This autumn, while we were in Venice wishing for a bit of rain to bring on acqua alta, the northwest of Italy was suffering terribly under torrents of water. Torrential rain caused massive flooding in and around Genova and the Cinque Terre, where it also caused huge landslides. By the time we passed through a bit over a month later, we saw no sign of it in Genova, in fact we'd forgoten all about it until the night before we left. In the Cinque Terre, things had not recovered so quickly. Riomaggiore is the most southern of the five (cinque) towns and, by this time at least, seemed relatively unscathed. Travelling as we are, without doing too much (i.e. not enough) prior research into our journey, we knew there had been some bad flooding which probably caused some damage, but we didn't realise quite how bad it was. Our first surprise came when we were told by the information centre people in Riomaggiore that, except for the pathway between there and Manorola, all the walking tracks through the Cinque Terre were closed, as was the entire town of Vernazza. Perhaps I should explain here that the five little coastal towns that make up the Cinque Terre are (usually) all linked by a 5 hour (each way) walking track around the sides of the cliffs. In addition to this main pathway, there are also numerous other tracks up and around the cliffs, linking in some of the smaller, higher up settlements. 

We had thought it quite likely that some of the tracks, or sections of tracks, would be closed, but were so disappointed to hear it was all of them. We resolved to explore the four towns we could access top to bottom, walking first to Manorola then catching trains to Corniglia and Monterosso al Mare. That afternoon and evening we began our explorations, walking up and around as much of Riomaggiore as our legs would take us, stopping at a lookout point on a terrace between some houses to watch the sun set into the sea (no apple green flash). The next morning, after the best sleep we'd had since leaving Venice (so quiet here!), we made our leisurely way around the cliffs to Manorola. On the underpass leading into the town we noticed signs up saying track number something or other from Manorola to Corniglia was the only one still open; we asked in at the information centre and sure enough - we had found a 2 1/2 hour walk to do up around and down the cliffs to Corniglia. We were so happy!

Manorola.
Note the nativity scene on the righthand hillside.

After a quick look around Manorola - up to the cemetery on the hill and to the beginning of the coastal walkway to Corniglia (we looked through our binoculars at all the landslides along the cliff face, they were many and large) - we grabbed a quick coffee and the most delicious pastries yet eaten in Italy and headed up the hill. 

There have been so many large scale nativity scenes set up in the towns we've visited, but this one is by far the winner - silhouette cutouts placed in amongst the terraced vineyard looking down over the town and out to sea.

The path we were after took a bit of finding, and, quite possibly, we didn't actually find it until we reached Volastra at the top of the hill, but we found tracks enough to get us there - making like mountain goats and climbing. It was bloody hot going. Nothing like it would be in summer of course, but that's probably why the path was so hard to find - because no one uses it in summer, and no one else was doing it when we were there. We just went straight up the really really steep hillside, and wearing a woollen dress over two layers of woollen undergarments really wasn't appropriate.

Almost at the top, F points to goodness knows where from within the thick of vine terracing.

After finally making it up up up up up up through all the terraced vineyards and olive groves, we found ourselves on a pathway leading into and through Volastra. From there we walked around the curve of the hill, through more vineyards and terraced gardens to another even smaller settlement, just two or three houses. After a while the vineyards and olive groves gave way to a forest. Terraces were still in evidence, but people had long since given up working this section of the hillside.

That's where we're headed - Corniglia from above.

With the grapes and olives in pruning mode, it was left to the citrus trees to provide a view of bounty in this dramatically difficult terrain, and by goodness did they provide. Oranges and lemons especially, but also grapefruit and clementines in such abundance, but so god damn well fenced in!

Heading down through Corniglia.
Down down down down.

Looking back up the seemingly endless zig zag of steps we'd just descended.

 The train we caught to Monterosso skipped right through Vernazza without stopping, and Monterosso itself was not looking great. Mountains of rubbish were piled up in temporary dumps on the beach and mangled boats were still strewn along the shoreline. We didn't stick around long. Most of the people there seemed to be civil defence type workers and cleanup / reconstruction crew and they didn't look like they needed rubber necking tourists getting under their feet. Google Cinque Terre floods and have a look at some of the videos - it's bad.

That evening we watched the sky turn pink from the station as we waited for a train running on a quite disrupted schedule - saved our legs walking up another hill to see the sun set though. Next morning we just had time for one more quick roam around the hill before catching a train Lucca-way.

Looking up the other side of Riomaggiore from the castle on the hill.

12 December 2011