Cinque Terre
We stayed in two different places; the first was in Riomaggiore the most southern of the 5 villages. We went further north of Cinque Terre also, just above in a little place called Dieva Marina. Here we still had easy access to the Cinque Terre National Park.
The accommodation was different to anything we had experienced as back packers. There were two fold out beds in a tall tipi like tent, it was comfortable and affordable.
We caught the train back to Riomaggiore and began the 'lovers walk.' This walk leads on to a spectacular trek north to all five villages via the cliff tops. It was an amazing walk, each village unique in its own right, hard to explain something neither words not photograph can capture fully, it is mixture of the history, the people, the local produce, the make up of each town which sparkles differently out towards to Mediterranean.
Besides the delicious pizza we ate by the water, the fourth village; Vernazza had a particular treat in store,
We had eaten our Italian meal by the water, and had reluctantly got ourselves up and ready to continue the last and most difficult part of the walk. But we were drawn to the village and found it hard to leave.
On our way back to conquer the last part of the 5 village trek, we noticed a small gathering growing under traditional set of village windows on one of the buildings. Only this window was different to the others as it displayed a floral decoration.
We learnt that this meant a wedding was underway in the town, we also noticed that everyone in the expanding crowd of local villagers held a bag of some description. They were restless and stood staring up at the window salivating, waiting in anticipation.
The recently wed couple fought their way through the crowd disappearing briefly, before reappearing at the same window everyone was staring at with expectation. The couple waves first, like shy celebrities from the window, and then they gave the crowd what they were waiting for. They presented a massive basket that took the space of the double window sill. The crowd cheered! The basket was overflowing with all sorts of lollies, chocolates, sugar coated almonds etc, which they threw out to the crowd.
Now it was on for young and old, literally. All ages were involved, 10-11 year olds and younger were elbowing grannies and vice versa, it was hilarious! NO MERCY! NO PITY! Shelle (getting heavily involved) beat a 70+ woman to a lolly on the ground, feeling bad she offered it to the lady who firmly refused, looking offended, instead returning to the pigeon fight as lollies rained from above. The exhibition went on for a solid 20 minutes, if not more, and the couple went through about 15-20 of the massive baskets, allowing the majority of the crowd to walk away with bags over flowing. We did not do to badly either thanks to Shelle, and her ruthlessness!! It was a memorable experience. The extra sugar helped the energy in the final stage as we arrived in Monterosso, (the most Northern of the 5 villages) as the sun went down.
