We left Bologna early to call into Modena and hopefully go through a Balsamic factory tour, do some tastings and buy some product…..no one was open in the morning, all English tours were in the afternoon. Stink. We called in advance to Parma, Rosie wanted to go on a Parma ham making tour, do some tasting and buy some product….no one was open in the morning and there were no English tours till the afternoon….two strike outs, really, it was Thursday morning for goodness sake. Does no one work in this country!?
Straight to the Cinque Terre we go, The Operator made good time and soon we were winding up narrow roads on steep switchbacks heading out of La Spezia which is the largest city bordering the National Park where the Cinque Terre – or ‘Five Lands’ sit. This is our first peek of where we are heading…the foliage is very green and dense after a long hot summer and the landscape takes on a tropical look, plus, the humidity is increasing, Rosies hair is getting bigger.
There are no cars in the town at all. By the car barrier at the top of the village is a parking building…of sorts…Silvia our contact said that it was free to park here on levels 4,5 and 6. The parking building has six levels alright….and room for only 20 cars on each level. We went up and up and up….on level 6 there were still no empty cars parks….The Operators three point turn to go back was turning into a 10 point turn because the building was so narrow and the Fiat 500 we rented has a terrible lock….as we were partially through this manoeuvre….someone came and left our floor, empty car park! Rosie jumped out of the car to nab it, this was like gold, we were parking and staying put for the next three days! Lucky or what!
We were too early to check into our apartment so we left the bags in the car and wandered into the village. Down and down and down we went…Little shops and bars line the roadside and houses are positioned amongst narrow alleys with steps hewn into the stone for access. The lower we went into the town, the steeper the road….we should have been abit clever about our bags…..we should have repacked our stuff for three days into one bag….after all Rosie wasn’t able to hump the bag down the steep road and up all those stairs…..
The town is cut in half by a tunnel that you walk through to access the harbor from one way and the train station from the other. As soon as you pop out in the harbor area, you are in another world. Everything slopes even more steeply down to the sea and the view is amazing.
Tall buildings in multiple pastel shades cling to the stone cliffs and loom over you, a wide boat launching ramp acts as the main street, colourful fishing and rental boats are pulled up on it away from the tide and the boom of the ocean as it surges in ricochets all around you.
Restaurants with purpose built flat terraces with stone steps leading to them have umbrellas sheltering you from the sun. The paint is peeling off the buildings, cactus and succulents cling to the stone trying to push a root through the cracks….there is not a breath of wind, it is so sheltered down here. Fishing buoys bob in the harbor and small dinghies are moored in the man made inlet. The Ligurian Sea is iron grey and so calm, grey clouds gather on the horizon there is a storm coming.
Rosie and The Operator bought a cone of mixed seafood and chips and sat on the stones at the end of the breakwater and just absorbed the colour and the goings on around us, then it was time to meet Silvia, she was showing us where our apartment was for the next 3 nights. Lucky she was there to guide us, we would never have found the place on our own, well, technically you can see where the apartment is…it is the grey building third in from the left…big red building, skinny yellow building, grey concrete building….that’s us, top floor rooftop apartment…
…how you accessed it, well that is another story…not through the front door you can see….round past the red building on the end to the left, up 4 flights of hand hewn over sized steps above the sea to a concrete alleyway, through that and there is the door…the pic on the right is the ‘out to sea’ view from the alley.
The irony is you climb that high you are on the same level as the apartment and just walk in…oops, the apartment is two levels, the bedroom on the bottom and the bathroom and living room on the top floor….more steps to climb…Rosie’s knees will never be the same again, or, it could be the strengthening exercise she needs. So, now think about the suitcases…from the car park The Operator carried the bag down six floors to the bottom of the car park…then descended the steepest road you have ever walked, then negotiated about 200 downward stairs to the bottom of the harbor….then climbed up a further 100 stairs in the pic on the left to get to the apartment. Then did it all over again to get Rosie’s bag…..all because The Operator was too cheap to pay the 4euro luggage transfer fee.
The terrace is amazing, we look straight down onto the harbor and have a birds eye view of all the comings and goings. Hold on, sitting there looking around there are at least two dozen eyes all with the same view, on similar levels, all looking at each other from our balconies, lucky the sea is so mesmerising.
Late afternoon the storm did come in, first with gentle rain and then it got heavier and heavier, the restaurant across the harbor with the white umbrellas closed it terrace and we had a lovely meal inside the vaulted restaurant. It was abit of an exposed hike to get home and after a couple bottles of wine, but we got there just as the weather became really nasty, thunder and lightening rolled in and we slept to the sound of the roaring wild ocean.
Tomorrow we are hoping that the storm has abated and we have fine weather again, fingers crossed.
