Hiking the Cinque Terre National Park

Cinque Terre is five villages which are relatively inaccessible by car. They’re connected by a hiking trail and a train. We walked from our village, Vernazza, (second from the north) to the next village to the south, Corniglio. The trail is rough and steep, often paved with uneven flat stones, and although there can be very long drops to the sea, there is almost never a guard rail. Despite this, Ria was such a good walker that we never felt that she was in danger. She walked carefully, paying attention and choosing her steps well.

The walk took us almost two hours, and Ria was strong and energetic until the end. We’ve had beautiful weather, sunny and warm but not hot, and cool in the shade and in the evening.

In Corniglio, we had a delicious lunch, wandered around, and took the six-minute train back to Vernazza.

Our hotel

Our hotel is called La Malá. We recommend this place highly. The hotel is perched on a cliff, and our room looks out on the sea. Below the terrace, the view plunges steeply to rocks and crashing waves below. We’re pretty neurotic about letting Ria play out there, to her frustration. Ria has a little play room on its own floor, and with a singular view of the sea from a window in a tiny alcove.

We had dinner at an outdoor café in the main square — homemade pasta with scampi, stuffed mussels, and mussels and clams in wine sauce. Dessert was ice cream with “berries flambé”; apparently flambé doesn’t mean flaming in Italian. We’ve got no idea what it means, because we just got ice cream with berries. We did get an idea why the Europeans aren’t fat: dessert cost $13, but a liter of wine was only $9.

Cinque Terre

To get to CT, we drove along an even more twisty, turny road with views so incredible it’s cliché; along the road sides are vineyards and olive groves, pine trees and palm trees, and spring flowers. At the bottom of the road to Vernazza we parked the car and took a shuttle down to town. I’ll let the photos of Vernazza speak for themselves.

The Drive to Cinque Terre

Wow … it’s breathtaking getting here. The land around Milan is flat and dull, but hills do eventually appear, and when the road hits the coast at Genoa and turns south, the Mediterranean’s full glory is apparent.

The road south from Genoa runs along the coast, twisting and turning and crossing multiple rivers that cut deep gorges in the land. The road handles these gorges by alternating between high bridges in the brilliant sun and ill-lit tunnels. In the right lane are lumbering trucks with smog-covered taillights; in the left lane are Mercedes and Maseratis driven by testosterone-addled Italians. When I was six, my family spent the summer in Italy, staying in a villa outside of Lucca. The drive south from Genoa is a family legend. My father negotiated this road while my mother sat white-knuckled in the front seat (and if she was then anything like she is now, making nervous little sounds like Caspar the Ghost) and my sister got car sick and threw up in the back seat. Fortunately, when we took the same road to Cinque Terre, Ria read poetry to us and never got ill.

We did have just a little nap, cuddled up in our itsy tiny rental car on the side of the road, which was, I confess, one of the best parts of the day. We had a picnic lunch in a little town square on the way to CT.

Italian Drivers

It’s apparently not an exaggeration that Italians drive like maniacs, and we were side-swiped by an older gentleman in an Alfa before we even made it to the freeway. He was very pleasant about it, and as none of us could speak a common language or figure out what to do, he wrote a very nice statement to Hertz explaining that he’d hit us, and providing contact information. As our rental price includes the full insurance, we expect that he’ll never hear from us again. He and his wife were so very kind, and welcomed us to their country.

Flights

Uneventful. At least until the whole plane was woken from its fitful slumber by a page calling for a doctor. Five generic white men, Thom included, headed to the back of the plane. Thom and a cardiologist remained, to attend to a young woman who had fainted after standing up. She fell and hit her head on the metal corner of the jump seat, cutting her face and scalp to the bone. She’ll require plastic surgery to prevent an unsightly scar across her eyebrow. The crew pondered diverting the flight to Heathrow, but apparently decided against that, as we landed in Milan right on time.

Immigration was easy, customs non-existent.

Ria at the Seattle Airport

Aren’t these sculptures great? It’s too bad there’s a sign telling you to stay off the art (which we noticed only after climbing all over this very climbable art).

Lunch at the Pink Door

Ria had a delicious cheese plate, all Italian sheep’s milk cheeses…

… and fed a bronze pig.