Cinque Terra

The trek to Cinque terra started early the next morning. All of Europe was in a heat wave, so we dressed lightly and bought water on the way. We took the train to the first city and hopped on the trail for the first leg, better known as the “Walk of Love.” Is that not the ultimate in cheese? Yeah, that’s what I thought, too.

Cinque terra is a famous walk between 5 seaside towns in the Italian Riviera. The towns are nestled into the bays and cliffs along the seaside, a jumble of colorful houses surrounded by trees heavy with oranges and lemons, with basil and rosemary and thyme literally underfoot. The air is fragrant with the smell of the sea and fresh herbs, citrus fruits and vineyards, and everywhere there are soaring birds and the ocean and swarms of color. The first two legs of the walk were pretty uneventful. We stopped at the third town, Corniglia, for lunch. We ate at a lovely little restaurant that jutted out above the town. Jeff had gnocchi with a fresh, fragrant pesto. I had a lovely macaroni with crab in a tomato cream sauce. We shared a bottle of wine and just enjoyed the rest and the food and the views.
After Corniglia we tackled the second half of the walk, which proved to be challenging, unexpectedly so. The first part of the trip there
were little stands set up the whole way selling gelato and water every so often, and we just thought the whole thing would be like that. Hah. Um, no. All of a sudden we were scaling the hillsides, clambering up and down steep switchbacks only to all of a sudden come upon these amazing lookouts over practically vertical hillside. There was no gelato, only scurrying lizards, the hot sun, and stairs made of cut rock. The traffic was nonexistent at this point as well. And of course, we had forgotten to grab water at the last town. Brilliant.

Luck was with us when we ran into a little villa in the middle of the trail, where the homeowners had set up a little store in their basement where you could buy water and snacks. We bought a liter of water, and gratefully went on our way. We made it to the fourth town, Vernazza, tired, dirty, and hungry. We happened upon a gelato shop that is apparently famous. There was a little sign on the wall that said that people like Bruce Willis fly all the way to Vernazza just to buy gelato there. Of course we tried it. It was lovely, but I can’t say it was all that different from any of the other ices that we had there. They were all amazing, it was difficult to say which was best. Jeff had a watermelon gelato and was literally spitting out watermelon seeds, and I was picking the strawberry seeds out of my teeth after eating mine.

I washed my feet in the ocean and we headed off towards the last city on the trip, Monterosso. At the end of the trail we met a woman from San Diego, and we ended up sitting and having drinks with her and two of her friends. They were all teachers traveling around Europe for the summer, and it was refreshing to sit and talk with new people and swap stories, and after one drink we were all chatting and laughing like good friends. Finally it was dark and the last train was leaving soon, so we caught the last train back to LaSpezzia, ate some more pizza, and called it a night.