Day 11: September 4, 1999
Day trip to Cinque Terre, Italy (from Lerici)

Again we woke up early, hoping to make the 9:30 boat to Cinque Terre. The hotel had a huge and delicious spread for breakfast, it was hard to limit yourself to a few things. As we were leaving the hotel, it started to rain, so we wondered if we should go on the boat, but since it was light rain and stopped shortly after, we decided to go ahead. I suggested that Walendo go back to the room to get his umbrella, though. We walked down the tiny street that is really a bunch of stairs from the hotel to the town, and saw some booths with fruits and cheeses and some with meats. We stopped at a bank so I could get some cash out. It was amazing, I put in my card and out came Italian money deducted from my checking account in US dollars -- I love that.

Portovenere

We paid for the boat and got on. As I sat on the top level, I realized that there were lots more booths along the next street and wished we'd walked along them in the 10 minutes we had to wait. Ah well. The boat took off, passed by La Spezia and stopped at Portovenere. Portovenere had a lovely church that was black and white stripes, right on the rocks at the point where the Gulf opens up to the sea.

Riomaggiore, one of the Cinque Terre towns

We saw some amazing little houses with vineyards terraced along these steep hills, with no obvious pathways to get there. It's amazing people live there. We stopped at four of the 5 towns that make up Cinque Terre, and each time two men shot out from the boat a rampway that had wheels on the end so it could move to and fro with the water as people got off onto a tiny dock.

Ellen along the trail from Monterosso & Vernazza

We got off at Monterosso, planning to walk back to as many of the other towns as we could. We wandered along the streets for a while, which were narrow little streets with narrow multi-storied buildings, all brightly painted in pastel colors. The buildings were only in okay shape, so it was something between picturesque and run down. The town was very small, so we finished walking around about 20 minutes later, and then headed over to the next town, Vernazza. We walked up tons of steps through vineyards that were terraced along the rock.

House just north of Vernazza

There were a lot of people on the path, so we had to pass people and step aside for others. Eventually, we got to relatively flat ground and then it started to go down again. We were blitzing along by then, and Walendo was very proud of how well he'd walked the hike. (He did do very well.) (W: Hah! I laugh at all who think I'm out of shape! Actually, if there's food at the destination, I'm set.) After about 1.5 hours, we got to Vernazza, though about halfway through it started to rain. It was fairly warm, though, and we were sheltered to some extent by the trees, so we were okay. It was a bit of an adventure. (I had also brought my pants-that-are-shorts so I was glad I could take the legs off when we were climbing but they kept me warm on the boat.)

Vernazza

When we got to Vernazza, it was raining for real, and everyone was huddled in doorways, in restaurants, and under umbrellas (w: thank God Ellen made me go back and get my umbrella!). We walked around a bit, and had trouble getting in anywhere to eat, so we went further up till we came to a little bar/restaurant at the top of the hill that wasn't busy. Walendo got a panini and I just had some tea (still full from breakfast). He kind of made friends with the waitress who was trying to help him out in speaking Italian. We sat for a while trying to decide whether to keep going along the hike or take the boat back. We finally decided to just keep hiking, but then when we went back down into town to pick up the trail, it was raining pretty hard and it was kind of cold, so we decided it would be silly to keep going. We waited for the boat, and realized the next boat would take us to Riomaggiore, not all the way to Lerici, but we figured we'd do that, walk around there, and then go home on the next boat. While we waited for the time for the boat, I bought a Cinque Terre t-shirt that was very nice, $9.

The boat was late, but we got on and went to Riomaggiore. There was only about 10 minutes till the next boat because of the time, but we figured we'd walk around and see if we wanted to head back right away or wait for the next boat an hour later. This town was really steep, and it didn't take that long to walk though it, even going way up into the tiny streets away from the main strip, so we headed back to the boat.

Riomaggiore Houses

We just missed the one going to Lerici. Walendo wasn't up for another hike up the hill (W: no food up there :-)), so I went off on my own (also in search of a bathroom). I went way up along an extremely narrow path-road. It was so narrow that I had to close my umbrella to keep from scraping along the walls. Again, people had grown little vineyards along the hills, right along the back roads of the town. It was pretty neat to see.

Main street in Riomaggiore

If the weather had been nicer, I would have taken more pictures but it was too hard to manage without getting the lens wet. I finally ended up going to the bathroom in this little WC that had no toilet, just a porcelain hole in the ground that you squat over. Yuck.

I met back up with Walendo (using the radios to communicate, of course) and we waited for the 4:25 boat. At 4:25 a boat arrived and we started to get on but discovered it went back to Monterossa. We waited another 20 minutes and finally another boat arrived coming from the right direction. We got on, with the guy looking carefully at the ticket. Since this was one of the last boats and it was cold and rainy, there were a zillion people crammed into the inside part of the boat, so many that none of the people on our stop could get in. We sat outside, Walendo with no sweater even, and bore the cold.

Man in Portovenere Window

(I had my fleece, which did a decent job, even when it started to rain a little.) After Portovenere, the boat started to head in to La Spezia, even though we had passed it by on the way in. When we got there, it turned out it was the last stop, so we had to get off. When we asked the guy about Lerici, he acted all annoyed and told us to get off the boat. A nice woman who spoke English told us we could take a bus and pointed us in the right direction. (There was a French couple in the same situation, so we commiserated with sign language with them.)

La Spezia is a pretty big town, and it had a nice walking main strip with tons of stores along it. No real bargains, though. Lots of clothing stores. Walendo has been having fun watching all the women in skin-tight pants, which seems to be the style here. Many of them have very nice legs, so they look good. Along the way to the station, we stopped in a little cafe for some hot chocolate. It was the perfect thing to warm us up and stave off hunger. It was very yummy and chocolatey. We walked past the walking street and weren't sure where to go when we saw a bus that had "Stazione" on it, so we followed it. Before we got there, I saw a bus labeled Lerici and tried to run after it to get on it, but it wouldn't stop. We went to the station, bumbled about to figure out where to go, and finally found it. When the bus arrived, it turned out we were supposed to get tickets at the tobacconist nearby. We had time, though, so we did that and got on. We also discovered that you're supposed to stamp your ticket using the machine, another thing we wouldn't have known if we didn't see someone do it. Finally, we arrived at Lerici, cold and tired but glad to be back.

Lerici Houses

We took hot showers and relaxed for a while and then headed out for dinner. We walked around the town to scope things out and tried two restaurants that were full (or said they were even though it didn't look it) before we found a small pizzeria. Oh, but first, we stopped in a bookstore and Walendo found two books in Italian of dog stories for kids, something his mom would love for her dog book collection, so he got them, a good find. There were two empty seats (out of 5) but there were people waiting outside, so we weren't sure what the deal was, but we went in anyway. Turned out they were waiting for takeout. I got a 4-cheese pizza with mushrooms and Walendo had tomato, ham and mushroom ("prosciutto y fungi" - the tomato is just tomato sauce. Man, that was good pizza!) and both of them were delicious. Mine didn't even have tomato and it was still yummy. You certainly can eat well in Italy. Walendo had two beers, having discovered that he's developed a taste for it since he's been ordering it a lot on the trip, and he got a little buzzed. We got some gelato at one of the many stores, mine was a deliciously creamy chocolate and Walendo had lemon. He quickly realized the error of his ways and got a chocolate one at a different place after he finished the lemon, but I didn't think that chocolate was as good. Poor guy. He wanted to walk around and hang out more, maybe drink some more, but I was chilly and wanted to head back. I guess I was just a dud spud for the evening.

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