Apartments Stacked Like Brio Blocks

No guidebook or public broadcasting educational video can really prepare you for what you come upon when you arrive in Vernazza, Italy. It is the most extraordinary experience to arrive here by train after ten or more hours of travel, the last hour of which has been completely jammed with passengers riding the rails of the five breathtaking towns, known together as the Cinque Terre. It's a place of contrasts. It may be advisable not to arrive at 6 pm--the early dinner hour--which also coincides with the end of the beach day. The well-dressed diners and the tanning-oil-covered co-mingle for a time on packed trains that are also delivering a new shipment of awed tourists--which is how I could be described when I first came upon this place. I disembarked from the train to the station which was a little hard-scrabble, with its chipped concrete, tiles and flaking painted metal. A perfect contrast, really, for what was to come. As I made it to the base of the station stairs, the beauty of the place was hinted at though not entirely revealed. Tiny flags of various countries hung on a clotheslines criss-crossing above the main street through the village. This is a precarious tiny village with apartments stacked like tipping Brio blocks on top of one another, set on a sea that could be described as perfect blue. As I walk down the cobblestone main street, dragging the 4-wheeled suitcase alongside, a superhero appears. He’s just turned 82 and is rake-thin. He is generous and familiar and takes over with the bag. He is my host, the owner of the apartment I have rented for my stay. As he takes me across the central courtyard, there it is. The postcard, the posted image, from a thousand travel sites in full glory. Vernazza is perfectly picturesque and scruffy all at once--it’s fast love affair. The next morning I decide to do one of the hikes I had come here for. Fortunately I choose the Vernazza to Cornigla portion of the seaside mountainous path that extends from Riomaggorie to Montesarro. Getting to the base of the hike was an achievement--with reward. I sweated my way along, winding through narrow steep streets. I passed the perched cliffside homes to finally see the trailhead sign to Corniglia. The view from here is like none other. Vernazza, in its palette of oranges and pinks, is as the guidebook promises, impossibly beautiful-- a dream that may be hard to leave.