Europe trip (Part 8): Cinque Terre

Had fun with Allison and Jodi last night! It was good to catch up. I also tuned my harp yesterday; I've been neglecting it recently, I'm afraid. Now that sessions at the Tranzac are over until the fall, I'm going to focus on practising some harp pieces in addition to reviewing my whistle tunes.

Part 1 (Paris) - Part 2 (more Paris) - Part 3 (Fonte de' Medici) - Part 4 (Montalcino and Montefiridolfi) - Part 5 (La Petraia) - Part 6 (Florence) - Part 7 (more Florence) - Part 8 (Cinque Terre) - Part 9 (Pisa, Fiesole and Volpaia) - Part 10 (Lost in Siena) - Part 11 (Siena) - Part 12 (Rome) - Final

And now we come to one of my favourite places during our trip to Europe: Cinque Terre (see above photo).

Cinque Terre consists of five small villages along the rocky coast of eastern Liguria in northern Italy. Here's a map of the area in Wikitravel; it has many steep slopes which have been cultivated into terraced vineyards. The coastline, five villages, and the surrounding hillsides are all part of a national park by the same name.

There are very few cars in the villages since the area is not easily accessible by road. Visitors usually leave their cars outside the town area.



On the way to Cinque Terre, we passed some mountains which I thought were snow-covered until Ginny said that the white was marble. Marble. How cool is that? Beckett later told me that apparently Michelangelo carved some of his statues from marble out of this area.



We visited Manarola, one of the towns in Cinque Terre and arguably the oldest, with the cornerstone of the church dating from 1160. According to this Wikipedia entry, Manarola is often mistaken as a fishing village. I can see how easily this misconception could occur; there were boats everywhere.

Manarola is traditionally a wine-producing town, however....a dry white wine named, not surprisingly, "Cinque Terre." Cinque Terre also produces Sciacchetrà, a prized dessert wine made from prime grapes dried to the point of holding only a few drops of sweet juice, and limoncino, a dessert wine made from steeping lemon peels in pure alcohol and then added sugar and water to make a liquor.



Cinque Terra has some of the best coastline hiking trails in the world. The path from Riomaggiore to Manarola is called the Via Dell'Amore (or roughly "Lovers Walk").

The scenery was amazing. I'm glad they had railings on the trail or I'm sure I would have happily wandered off the cliff into the Mediterranean, staring at the hills and the sea:



The trail goes as far as you can see in the distance, then to the next town. I'd love to come back to Cinque Terre someday, not only for the beautiful scenery but also to do the entire trail between all the villages.

We bought fruit drinks at Siamo alla Frutto; I chose a freshly made Apple & Cardamom lemon drink from this menu while Ginny and Jeff selected from the Almond Milk selection. We sipped our cold drinks as we walked, admiring our surroundings.

View from part of the trail:



Don't you wonder what's hidden in that small cave near the top of the picture?

Being so close to the ocean, of course, I had to order seafood for dinner. Ginny and I shared this mixed seafood platter at Trattoria Bar il Porticciolo while Jeff opted for a pesto ravioli which was also very tasty.



I didn't recognize some of the fish on this plate, and it was the first time I ever ate fresh eel...everything tasted delicious. On this trip, my other food firsts included pigeon, rabbit and wild boar. Jeff and Ginny had their usual after dinner coffee. This is what you got when you asked for "coffee" in Italy:



Jeff and Ginny both enjoyed it, but it looks like sludge to me. :-) According to this site, ordering coffee in Italy is like ordering expresso in North America. Coffee tastes different depending where you go in Italy; all regions like their own coffee the best, of course. Cappuccino is regarded as a breakfast coffee; only children and tourists drink "milky" coffee like cappuccino after 10 a.m.

Anyway, you can find more about Cinque Terre in the Wikitravel site and Cinque Terre's tourist consortium site. Ostello Cinque Terre is the largest hostel in the area, and apparently there the Monastery of S. Bernardino above Corniglia (one of the villages) offers accommodation for about 60€ per room.

Here is some other travel info I found about Cinque Terre:

Travel Resources for le Cinque Terre
The Cinque Terre Trail System
Travelers Digest: Cinque Terre (includes accommodation list)
The Cinque Terre


To be continued...

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