Cobblestone streets, leaning towers + lovers lane

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  Riomaggiore, Italian Riviera, Italy
Saturday, July 5, 2008

mood: sleepy

well its a big saturday night for me... updating my blog. though saturday night doesnt really mean much to me anymore, none of the days do, they all just blur into one. the only way i know what date it is because the computer tells me so. ahhhh... the joys of travel.

so i finished off the rest of my stay in Florence firstly with a night at the campground watching the final of the eurocup, i was going for Spain seeing as i spend the most time of my trip there, how convenient that they won. It was actually one of the more boring games that i had watched, quite disapointing, although i dont think the spanish cared. they loved it.

I spent Monday wandering the shops which werent open on Sunday, checking out the marketplaces etc. i bought a beautiful cashmere scarf which i have packed safely in my pack for when i am faced by the perilous european winter in a few months. not so handy now though, with temps averaging a balmy 35 degrees. thats sweating weather.

I also had to get to my last nights accomodation at the campground outside of town where i hadnt been able to book into the previous 2 nights, which was fun trying to manhandle my pack onto the public buses, then walk 500m in the afternoon sun to the campsite. It was worth it though, the cabins were the best that i have stayed in so far. i was lucky and got a big one, there were 2 bedrooms - one with a double bed - and one with 2 singles and a bunk. i let the other girl have the double bed as she was staying longer, but i still had the other bedroom to myself so i could spread my stuff out. we also had a bathroom with a big shower, and a lounge with a table and a small kitchenette, fridge etc. very nice. i did some handwashing of some clothes in the basin of the bathroom and strung them out on my washing line all over my room.

One thing i have to mention about Italy is its drivers. They are absolutely mad. and they go crazy when they get stuck in traffic jams. It seems that road lines mean nothing, i have seen some cars driving two-abrest in one lane, and alot drive up the freeways sitting over the middle line, they can never decide what lane they want. oh yes, and no indicators are necessary. and speed restrictions dont apply. there is a very interesting roadway in the middle of florence which is a road probably 4 or 5 lanes wide, but with absolutely no lines. very ammusing to navigate from a bus as there is not much that can hurt you, but i would be pooing myself if i was in a car, or even worse, a vespa, which seem to come from everywhere. this patch of road is very dangerous.

Tuesday we caught the bus and after a detour to see the leaning tower of Pisa (and take the classic 'holding up the tower with one hand' photo), we got to a town called La Spezia, which is the gateway to the Cinque Terre region, which means '5 villages' which are dotted along the coast and all connected by a walk called 'lovers lane'. the area is a national park, and vehicles do not have access, you can only get around by foot. only people who work in the towns can own any land or houses, so it has not been taken over by hotels and still has its quaint village feel. To get around, there is a train which services the 5 villages, and as its a national park, they are big on keeping everything green and enviromentally friendly.

I stayed in the first village of Riomaggiore, which i think is one of the nicest. we rocked up there with 5 people who were all staying in the same accomodation, and were kind of hoping that we could be in the same room, which was interesting as they were so unorganised that they had no idea who was staying where and how many beds were empty. Nearly all the accomodation in Cinque Terre is appartment style rooms, you would never find a modern hotel here. And they are not all in the same building. they are generally spreadout through the town, which we were about to find out.

The first apartment we were taken to only had 4 beds available, so we decided that 3 people would stay there, and 2 of us would go to another appartment. seeing as there were 2 guys and a girl travelling together, they stayed there, and i went off to the other place with a girl called Lyndel. we werent very impressed with how the first appartment looked, it was very cramped, had no windows, and no airflow. i secretly hoped ours wasnt as feral as that. Our room happened to be at the top of a steep hill, with almost 200 steps to climb. we had no idea when we started, as the girl who was taking us couldnt speak very good english, and by the time we got near the top, i was almost crawling like a turtle up with my pack on. The hike was worth the view, our room looked over the whole of the town and out to sea. most buildings in the villages are quite rundown compared to our standards, as was this one, but it was 100 times better than the one down the bottom of the hill. there were 2 bedrooms plus a bed in the dining room, so a total of 10 people, a nice sized balcony, basic kitchen and bathroom. after exploring our new home i ended up passing out and having a siesta before doing an orientation walk of the town, checking out the rock beach, and getting some supplies for dinner. and i had a gelati. i just cant help it. and they are so cheap here its fantastic. and nothing beats italian gelati. nothing.

even though our appartment was a little rundown, the light in our room didnt work, the toilet seat was broken, the bathroom seemed to flood every time anyone had a shower, and the beds were fold up old school trundle style, and you had to walk up 200 steps to get there, i fell in love with our appartment. during the day we left all the windows and doors open (except the front door of course) so the breeze got to blow all the way through, and all our stuff was safe as we were on the 2nd floor, and unless you were spiderman, you werent getting into the appartment. in the evenings most of the people staying in the room would cook dinner and we would eat and socialise on the balcony, drinking wine, watching the sun set over the ocean and listening to the bells from the bell tower go off randomly.

random story - on the first night we met a guy called Mark who bought a basil plant from the mini-market down in the town, and as he was leaving the following day, he left it for the rest of the household to use. we had to give him a name, and straight way i thought of the most amazing awesome appropriate name... BASIL!!! we then cracked jokes like 'gee he looks like a basil' and treated this plant like it was a child. sounds sad when i write it out here, but basil now has a special place in my heart! We actually used all the leaves by the last night, so he looked a bit sick and bare, but he was a definate member of our family by the end.

Wednesday we met up with the 3 new zealanders that we had left in the first appartment, and caught a train down to the last village, Monterosso. The boys were hoping to be able to hire a boat but it didnt end up working out so we ended up lying on the beach for most of the afternoon, swimming and sunbaking. The sun was overwhelming, and as the beach has more of a black colour it absorbed the heat and you couldnt touch the sand and rocks without getting 2nd degree burns. It was horrible. but the water was absolutely perfect, and i did my second swim out to a buoy in the middle of the bay, this time taking the 2 boys with me. i won of course, i dont think they teach new zealanders how to swim back home. i think thats becoming my tradition. we doggy paddled back into shore, and later took up my other tradition, gelati. We caught the train back at about 5.30pm and got some more supplies before heading up the monster stairs and spent another casual evening on our personal balcony.

Thursday was the big day - i completed the 12km hike along the coast from Monterosso to Riomaggiore. you can hike the trail either way, but i had heard on good authority that its easier to walk from the furthest end back, so we set off at 7.45am. the stint from the first to the second village is the hardest, they recommend 2 hours, and its like a goat trail, its barely wide enough for one person, its slightly overgrown, and you feel like you could fall off the side of the cliff at any time. but it was also the best scenery, the trail weaves up and over these ridges covered in native bush, with little creeks flowing down to the sea, and groves of olives and lemons and grapes built onto the sides of the hills. the first walk was brutal, i am definately in peak physical fitness when it comes to consuming gelati, but not so much when it comes to hiking up endless stairs and along the cliffs. I loved it though, and we managed to do it in 1hr and 15 mins, we kicked the 2 hour time in the butt! we had a short break in the village, Vernazza, before continuing on. The second part was a little easier and a little shorter, with a slightly wider path, though still in the goat style. The middle village of Corniglia marked the halfway point and i celebrated with hmmm... gelati? after the 3rd village it was an absolute breeze, the path was flat and had hardly any stairs, so we powered through Manarola and got back to Riomaggiore in 4 hours and 15mins, well under the allocated time frame of 5 hours.

Because we had started out so early, we saw pretty much no-one for the first leg, and it was only near the second leg where it became a little busy. by the time we were on the final stretch, the whole atmosphere of the walk was gone, where as before we had greeted everyone that we passed with a friendly hello and a smile, we found that it got so packed on the last sections that it completely lost its charm, and fell back into a tourist attraction catagory. it was a shame, as i was really enjoying the peace and tranquility. and the track was so easy to navigate and paved, you could push a pram along it, nothing like the goat trail we had tackled at the start. slightly disapointing. but still an increduible walk, absolutely breath taking. to spend 10 minutes pushing youself to make it to the top of a flight of stairs, and reach the top to see in the distance a village perched on top of cliffs was jaw dropping and blew the words right out of your mouth.

of course a sleep was in order when i got back to the appartment, and i spent the rest of the avo on the balcony and in the room, reading a newspaper that someone had bought (the first english newspaper i have seen in ages), doing the sudoku puzzle in it, and then making my dinner. I got into a bit of a routine while i was staying there, this was the first place where i have had really good oppotunities to cook, so every day i was having cereal for breaky (first cereal of the trip!!!), making a roll with tomato and prosciutto, or nutella, or jam, and for dinner pasta with pesto, or a caprese salad of tomato, mozzarella, olives and basil, and then fruit for desert, mostly watermelon and strawberries. i must say the pesto here is amazing, as this is the area which it originated, along with focaccias. there are many shops in the main street selling pizza and focaccias covered in pesto. everything here is so fresh and has the most amazing taste.

its pretty clear that in summer the locals make a killing here, with all their local produce, pastas, restaurants and the accomodation. the people who own the appartments must rake it in, they have 10 people in a appartment designed for 4 at the most, making 25euro a night off each (so 250 a night), which means that they are making 1750 euro a week off that appartment alone, you could never make that much from renting it to just a family or something. its crazy. and they have like 4 or 5 of these appartments. all they have to do is come in every day or so and change the sheets on the beds of people who have left, take away rubbish, and do a quick clean, and bang, thats a crazy ammount of income. thats like 3.5k in aussie dollars. madness. i want some.

Friday was the most laziest day ever, i did sweet f-all, took a little stroll around the town and checked out the places that i hadnt seen, and then went shopping as we had a very special event on that night at the appartment. During our social balcony time the night before we had met a new member of our appartment family, Jacob, who is the head chef in one of the posh restaurants on melrose drive in Los Angeles, and we had decided to do a 'Ready Steady Cook' style group dinner the following night with Jacob at the helm. we had 7 people for the dinner, and the requirement was that everyone had to go out during the day and purchase a 'secret ingredient', which we then all gave to Jacob at the start of the evening, and he had to work out a menu based on what we gave him. to be honest, i was a little aprehensive about what it could have turned into, but the results were absolutely amazing, Jacob is a brilliant chef. he had to go down to the town before he started and get some fillers, but everything was based around what we purchased, and we ended up with a feast that you would have paid 500 euro to eat. it was the best meal i have eaten in a very very very long time. My contribution was marinated octopus and mozzarella, and there were other contributions like capsicums, zuchinni, beans, meats, breads, pesto etc. the final menu was as follows:

big bowl of salad

bruschetta

pasta with pesto, roasted peppers and artichokes

broad beans in olive oil and lemon juice (to die for)

meatballs with capsicum and onion

octopus with onion, cucumber and lemon juice

fried zuchinni with garlic

plate of antipasto - roasted peppers, olives, artichokes, and mozzarella

bread (to soak up all the juices)

i was utterly amazed at how much food we made out of the little ingredients we started out with. and it was clear that everyone was stunned by how amazing and individual each dish was. everything worked out perfectly and we absolutely stuffed our faces with food, we drank 6 bottles of wine, cranked my ipod, and sat on our balcony relishing in the beauty of the view. it was the most perfect night. it couldnt have been any better. Though it did happen to be the 4th of July - independance day, and the bar in the town was celebrating, so after we had allowed ourselves a couple of hours to digest our dinner, we headed down, only to be sent home at 1am by the police. apparently theres not much of a nightlife here. but it didnt matter, nothing could have ruined the night, and i was well ready for bed by this stage.

So that takes us to today. We had to check out by 10am, and catch a train back to La Spezia, and wait around till 12pm when the bus would pick us up. It was really sad saying goodbye to our little abode and our housemates, and the Cinque terre. Out of everywhere i have been in Italy, i think the north has definately been my favourite, i loved Tuscany, and the Italian riviera has been amazing. It was sad knowing that i was heading into France and that my conquer of Italy was complete. another country down, so many more to go.

So i am now in Nice, and i must say, its very nice... haha excuse the pun. The drive today took us along the coast, past Monaco (we got to see Bono's house, and Elton John's, as well as the part of the road where Grace Kelly died) and down into the French riviera. We got in here at around 5pm and then i wandered the streets with the 3 new zealanders, till we found some food, and then walked down to the beach and along the promenade where everyone struts their stuff. Lots of runners and roller-bladers, people dressed up for an evening out, and lots of people just hanging out and people watching. I had heard some bad comments made about Nice, but so far it has impressed all of us. Tomorrow we are doing a day trip to hang out in Monte Carlo, and live the lives of the rich and famous - at least from the sidewalk anyway. im sure it will be an interesting entry.

Well i hope you have enjoyed the latest installment. im off to bed.