The Cinque Terre!
Australia Day in Rome, celebrated by two
Aussies, a Canuck, a Brazilian, and an Argentinian, was a smashing success,
bringing people together across cultural divides, but much more importantly,
informing us (thanks to Fernanda the Brazilian) that there was a train strike
in all of Italy (sidenote from Alice: Australia day will ALWAYS be more
important than train strikes).
This was the day before a train was supposed to take us from Rome to
Cinque Terre. Apparently, in
Italy, strikes are kind of flaky things, they weren’t sure if they would work
tomorrow or not, and we had no way of knowing until the train actually started
moving out of the station – or didn’t.
So we realized there was nothing we could do about it and celebrated the
occasion as planned.
The next day we went to the train station,
got on our train, and luckily, they decided that they would take us to Cinque
Terre, so we breathed a sigh of relief and watched out the window as Rome rushed
past one last time and evolved into rolling hills in the countryside.
The train pulled into the first stop
somewhere outside of Rome, and a team of six (desperate?) Italian housewives
boarded and took up the six previously empty seats surrounding Alice and
I. We smiled and said “ciao” (that’s
‘hi’ for all of you not fluent in Italian, its also ‘bye’ – which can sometimes
be awkward) and then one of them dove right into a quick Italian sentence
directed at us until Alice told her that we don’t speak Italian. “buono” (good)
she said, and made hand signals to let us know that we are lucky because
otherwise she would have chatted our ears off.
Sitting next to these soccer moms was
interesting, because they were just like Canadian soccer moms, only they spoke
Italian. They were just a bunch of
gals off for a weekend at the spa (I really have no idea what they were doing),
except for one difference. After
settling themselves in their seats, they each pulled out a paper bag with a
cheesy, delicious-smelling ball of something good, and munched on them. Once they had finished, they each, in
unison, pulled out another bag and had a foot-long Italian sandwich. They all polished these off
efficiently, and then pulled out dessert.
Note that these were not especially large women either. I remember feeling a bit puckish
myself, and sitting next to the women enjoying a seven-course meal didn’t
help. I have no idea where
all the food was coming from (or more importantly, where it was going) but they
still had room for intermittent snacks for the rest of the trip.
As we drew close to La Spezia, where we had
to change trains, Alice kept asking me the time (she doesn’t have a watch), so
she would know when we should get up to put on all our bags. We usually do this what feels like half
an hour too early and become exhausted just standing there with all of our
stuff on our backs (sidenote from Alice: this is normally due to the other
Italians, not me. Just saying!).
This time, (I guess I was having a bit of a power trip/messing with
Alice) I said that we didn’t need to get up so early because its not like we
are going to miss the station completely.
I wouldn’t tell her what time it was. She played it cool, and acted like this wasn’t bothering her
at all, but I could see the anxiety in her eyes as she tapped her fingers
nervously on the table. She
suddenly lurched forward and grabbed at my wrist, but my cat-like reflexes
meant that my arm evaded her grasp and I threw my hands under the table. “TELL MEEEEEE!” She whined
forcefully. “You don’t need to
know” I smirked, my voice conveying all the enjoyment I was having with this
situation. I would be deciding
when to get ready. I guess I am
too nice of a guy, too benevolent a soul, or maybe I finally fully realized how
much it pained her not to be completely prepared for everything, but eventually
I gave in and showed her the watch (sidenote from Alice: one day Neil is going
to tell a story about missing a train and we will all think back on this story
and about the lesson that he SHOULD have learnt rather than being a smart ass). We got up and put our packs on, and
only stood waiting to arrive at the station for ten minutes. The Italian Housewives had watched
(stared) in awe as we rose from our seats and soon tripled in size. They stared quite a bit (not
discretely) and talked about us in Italian. I even caught one of them making a hand motion to portray
the bags on our fronts that made us look pregnant (either that or she was
talking about how fat she was going to be after everything that she had consumed
on that train). I said “Ciao” and
they all reciprocated warmly and watched us as we waddled off the train, quite
amused by us tourists.
So we had arrived at La Spezia, the small
city near the Cinque Terre and headed straight to find out if we would be able
to get to Riomaggiore, our home base for the Cinque Terre and site of our
hostel, or if the train strike would be in effect. The nice lady at the desk told us that they still had no
idea if they would be striking at that time or not, so we would just have to
get on the train and wait, and if it didn’t go, we would be able to go in
another hour and a half. She also
told us that the hike along the coast, which connects the five towns of the
Cinque Terre and is the reason that everybody goes there, was closed, and we
would not be able to do it. Our
dreams were shattered. We would
still be able to hike through the mountains and take the smaller, less scenic
trails, but it wouldn’t be as magnificent as planned.
We decided still to go ahead with it and do
the lesser trails, and maybe take the train between the towns, since we weren’t
allowed to walk. So we got on the
train, waited, and luckily, the strike was apparently not in effect and the
train pulled out of the station and into a tunnel under a mountain. After ten minutes tunneling through the
mountain, we suddenly emerged from the darkness and were greeted by a view of
the Mediterranean Sea. It was, surprisingly,
nearly as exciting as when I first saw the Eiffel Tower, the water stretching on
forever just left me awestruck.
The train slowed to a stop and we tumbled out and onto the platform of
Riomaggiore.
What we now saw as we looked out over the
ocean, only a few steps out of the train, was one of the most amazing sights,
it was a perfect sunset. I have a
feeling that Alice is going to have a large and descriptive sidenote right
about here, so I will leave it at that. (hi! from Alice: So I don’t even think
that words can begin to describe the phenomenalness (definitely a word) of the
sunset that we saw as soon as we stepped off the train. The sunset in Venice
does not even BEGIN to compare to this sunset. Think about what you might have
imagined when you read about that sunset; multiply the beauty of that picture
by at least ten and you have this sunset over the beautiful sea! Even the
pictures do not do it justice. I IMMEDIATELY knew I was going to love whatever
the Cinque Terre had in store for us)
After the sun had dropped down off the edge
of the Earth, we grabbed our key from the office and made our way up the steep
hill that is Main Street Riomaggiore to our hostel. It was probably about a hundred feet higher than the train
station, and was a little apartment with five beds, a kitchen, and a
washroom. We had some supper and
waited to discover who we would be sharing the place with, as three beds were
already spoken for, but no one was home.
In the door came our answer in the form of two Canadians and an
American: Alex, Charlene, and Isaac, respectively. For the sake of speedy reading, we will call these three
Charlexaac (I just came up with that).
Anyway, these three turned out to be the coolest hostelmates we’ve yet
had, and the next couple days were to be a really fun time.
Charlexaac had invited two people they had
met on the trail that day over for dinner and wine, Americans Matthew and
Katherine (affectionately dubbed MatKat), so we partook in the eating and
drinking and soon became good friends with everyone. MatKat were really great, interesting people. For instance, Matt was the American
military’s version of James Bond, so he couldn’t really tell us anything
specific about his job.
We all slept well that night and the next
morning we prepared for some hiking.
Luckily for us, Charlexaac had told us that they had hiked the entire
coastal trail the day before, despite it being closed. They merely had to scale a few fences
and jump over a couple rockslides. (sidenote from Alice: as dangerous and
illegal as Neil made this sound, Charlexaac (if that is what I must call them)
reassured us in a much more reassuring way that it was a perfectly safe trail). Alice and I were pretty pumped about
this, our dreams had been restored, and there was hope yet.
While going through my bag, I noticed that
I had three pairs of jeans, though I had only brought two to Europe. We concluded that I had accidentally
STOLEN someone’s jeans from a hostel somewhere along the way. I tried them on and they were too
small, so I let Charlene try them on and they fit perfectly. They also fit Alex, and he really
wanted them, so I thought, “I don’t need them” and said that he could keep
them. Look at me, a modern-day
Robin Hood. I did kind of feel bad
though for whomever’s pants I had stolen, if someone took one of my two pairs I
would be distraught! Fast-forward
a few days and I get a wallpost on Facebook from Karl (remember Karl, from in
Rome, he made the risotto and traveled with us?). Ya, they were his jeans. My bad… Sorry for stealing your jeans
and then gifting them to someone else Karl… we can laugh about it now though
right?? Apparently there were also
8euro in the pockets so Alex is a lucky guy.
Any way, we headed out to trek the trail
through all five scenic little villages (Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia,
Vernazza, and Monterosso, in that order).
The first stretch was the easy part, it was actually paved and had
railings and was flat and only took twenty minutes and got us to the second
town, Manarola. That part had not
been closed, so now came our true test.
We looked around the sleepy little village and looked out over the
beautiful expanse of water. Alice
then said to me in a hushed voiced, “That guy has been following us…” and
motioned to the man also looking out over the beautiful expanse of water, only
a few metres away from us. I
recognized him too, we had seen him in one of the tunnels, in another part of
the town, and he had even been in Riomaggiore with us at the start of the
day. As we talked quietly and
discreetly, he stepped back and walked behind us and then stopped again on the
other side of us. We were a little
creeped out, so we pretended to keep looking out over the ocean, and decided to
wait him out. Eventually, he went
into a café and we took this chance to lose him and made for the closed portion
of the trail.
We left the town and came around a corner
on the trail and were confronted by a ten foot high steel gate blocking off the
entire trail. We hemmed and hawed
about whether or not we could get over the gate, or even if we should, and then
someone came around the corner behind us.
It was not the follower, but I thought it was at first. Instead, it was a girl named Ashtyn
from Minnesota whom we agreed to hike with. We talked about the trail and turns out Ashtyn had started
from the very far town Monterosso, a couple of days earlier. She had asked the
national parks people if she could walk it despite it being closed and they told
her that she could. Alice was
suddenly inspired, and within seconds had scaled the fence like a champ. Ashtyn and I followed, and we set out
happily on the beautiful/forbidden trail along the coast.
We didn’t make it very far, just around
another corner, before we met two officials who were locking all the gates or
surveying or something. Our lack
of Italian came in handy here, as we were able to play dumb and act confused
and as though we didn’t know that we weren’t allowed on this trail. The massive gate had been no
indication. We didn’t want the
embarrassing event to happen in which they would walk us back, and then watch
us climb back over the gate, so we ran all they way back and scaled the fence
in record time. We went to the
train station in town to see if we could take the train to the next town. Of course, the dude who had been
following us also came out of nowhere at the train station, but we just ignored
it. We never did see him again
after that, which was fine by us. We
learned that we would be unable to take the train for another hour, so we had
no choice but to attempt the route through the mountains. On the way up to the trail we met some
Belgians, Simon, Candice, and Peter.
So, the Canadian, Australian, American, and three Belgians all set out
together to conquer the Cinque Terre!
For the next hour, we climbed stairs.
Then we reached the top of the mountain. Seriously. The strenuous trail heading straight up the mountain tired
us out quite effectively, and we were forced to stop several times to catch our
breaths and let our muscles relax. (Sidenote from Alice: in future tourist guides they should literally
call this trail “the stairs of death” ALMOST DIED) Once at the little hamlet on
top of the mountain though, we realized that our efforts had been more than
worth it. The views of the ocean,
of the mountains, of the little villages so far below, were absolutely
breathtaking. We took way
too many pictures, and yet none of them were able to capture just how
spectacular the view was.
Next we continued on the trail which now
descended just as quickly as it had risen, as we head back down to sea level. This trail took us through vineyards
and terraces and past mountainside houses and olive farms. The trail headed into the forested
parts of the mountain, and got quite skinny and steep, and you had to watch
your feet to make sure you didn’t drop off the side of the mountain. Peter (of Belgium) at one point was
focusing more on the view than on the trail, and his foot slipped off the
side. He fell off entirely and was
lucky the drop was not as steep as in other places and there was brush and
branches to stop him from falling.
This was a bit of a scary experience, but Peter was okay, and we got him
back on the trail and continued onward.
Eventually we made it into the third village, Corniglia, and unsuccessfully
searched for a Gelato Shop that was open in winter. Alice and I realized that our detour through the
mountains, though scenic, had taken up a much larger portion of the day than we
had allotted for that span of the trek. Ashtyn, Candice, Simon, and Peter, wanted to sit down by the
waves for a little bit, but we had dreams of catching the sunset in Monterosso
that evening, so we said goodbye to our new friends and carried on the
trail.
Alice and I now rejoined the closed portion
of the trail, and luckily there were no patrolmen, or even gates to clamber
over. We took the trail up onto
the mountainside overlooking Corniglia and had some beautiful views. We stopped for Nutella and banana
sandwiches for lunch at one such vista, and then carried on along the forbidden
trail. Apparently this portion of
the trail was more accessible and the rules less enforced, as we met several
groups of people hiking it.
At one point, we came upon an open flat
part of the trail, with a clearing in the forest, and were surprised to find a
little village of cats. There were
no people, just cats, lots of cats, and there was food set aside for them and
little cat shelters. It was really
weird so we continued on without even taking a picture.
Around 4pm, we made it Vernazza, the
prettiest of the five villages, and marveled at its position jutting out on a
peninsula into the sea. We decided
that, because of our foray away from the coast, we would not be able to make it
to Monterosso in time for the sunset, and if we attempted to, we may die of
exhaustion on the way.
We walked down to the harbour of Vernazza
and met Alex and Charlene reading there.
Before we were able to tell them we had decided to take the train to
Monterosso, they told us how good of time we had made. We are not ones to refuse compliments,
so we agreed that we had covered a lot of trail in a decent amount of
time. We were kind of a big deal,
ya, we know. Alex was
super-impressed by us (high fives all around) and Charlene said that we
probably could make it there by sunset.
They told us that if we left now, we could do it. With one big boost of confidence we
walked past the train station and onto the final leg of the trail: to
Monterosso.
We made our way out of the scenic little
village, and on the outskirts, we came upon two elderly women speaking Italian
to each. We “ciao”-ed and walked
past, but one of them started speaking to us in Italian. We had a sunset to catch, so we
continued walking but she yelled after us. I let her know that I didn’t speak Italian, but I could see
by her hand gestures that she was telling us that the trail was closed and that
we shouldn’t walk there. I hurried
and caught up to Alice, who told me that it didn’t really matter because the
old ladies were not going to be able to catch us up all of these stairs
anyway. Hopefully.
We pushed ourselves as much as we could,
and soldiered on through the toughest stretch along the entire coast. The trail through the mountains had
probably been tougher, but this felt harder because we were so tired. We came near Monterosso, and got a
wonderful view of the setting sun, and took some pictures. We then began our long and painful
descent (going down thousands of stairs when you are tired is hard on the
knees, and pretty much everything else) and now realized that we would not be
able to see the sunset at Monterosso anyway, as it was in a bit of a bay, and
the sun would be behind a mountain.
We got into town just as it started to get
dark, and made our way down to the beautiful beach. There we noticed the huge one-day-away-from-a full moon
rising over the village, and it was a good enough substitute for a sunset for
us. We each took a picture of the
other touching the Mediterranean, to symbolize our finishing the trek, but
Alice took a really fricken long time to snap the photo of me so a wave came in and soaked my
recently dried shoes. (Sidenote from Alice: the photo was taken a good five
seconds before the wave hit Neil; he is just looking for an excuse for his
apparent lack of reflexes).
I walked to the train station in bare feet and we caught the train back
to Riomaggiore, hobbled up the hill to our hostel, and crashed on our beds,
nearly unable to move.
Isaac came home from his hike, Charlene and
Alex came back from their adventures, and we had pasta and wine (that’s the
third night in a row, for those of you keeping score at home) and chatted and
went to bed and all slept soundly.
In the morning Charlexaac got up at 6am to
leave, and we wished them well on their travels and went back to sleep for a
few more hours. After said hours
we packed up and fondly said goodbye to the Cinque Terre, the most beautiful
place we have yet been on our trip!
