Pisa, Mama Rossa and Riomaggiore

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  Cinque Terre, Italy
Tuesday, May 9, 2006

Replicating the morning routine of a legitimate Italian monk, i found myself up at the previously unimaginable hour of 6.30am, as tepid rain splotched down outside over the monastery courtyard. We lugged our packs out to the streets of Florence to the station, as Italian tradies in white overalls smoked ciggs and joked on their way to work. Jumped on a train and headed off to the town of Pisa - another location that arrested my imagination back in Grade 3 Italian class. Even at the age of eight i was totally guffawed as to how someone could stuff up a perfectly good tower so badly. We walked past pokey little streets and shops and suddenly, in the sunny open main plaza, there the bloody thing was - THAT tower, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, one of the few buildings on earth whose colossal engineering buffoonery transformed its town into a prime tourist location. Though they try to blame the tower's intense lean on dodgy ground and water damage, i wouldn't be suprised if the Pisa construction crew (and engineers) were perpetually stoned throughout the duration of the tower's erection

Bad toilet on italian train

. We took much pleasure in the obligatory photo session of taking turns 'holding the tower up', and Brooksy somehow pulled off one with his legs holding it up via a well coordinated handstand. Though Pisa was a bit of a one-horse town, its one horse was a top grade stallion (with a slight injury) - the tower and the buildings surrounding it in the open plaza were a definite highlight. We ate some homemade pizza from a friendly old dude in his shop, before crusing back on another train to our next destination - Cinque Terre via La Spezia.

Cinque Terre (or 5 Towns) is an area up on the North West coast of Italy encompassing 5 small gorgeous seaside villages with sloping main roads and passages, little nooks and staircase crannies, authentic Italian foodstores and colourfully painted old buildings perched between the sea and lush green cultivated cliffs. We got off at one of the larger villages, Riomaggiore, and were instantly accosted by a mad little bespectacled Italian woman called Mamma Rossa, at least 70 and 5-foot nothing, waving a small bit of paper with the number '15' on it. She lured us to her hostel and we set up shop, the deal sealed by her friendly eccentricity and helpfulness.

Riomaggiore was instantly amazing. The trains barrelled through town literally on the cliff, and the shimmering sea was but a breath away

Holdin it up

. Walking up the near vertical main street, past small town stores and random old Italian men talking old man jive,. the character of the town was remarkably unique and amazing, the views from the top even more special. This definitely felt like the Italy i wanted to see.

Consumed the best pesto pizza i've ever eaten in the main street before taking in the sea views and the town vista, as deep grey rain clouds began to come up over the green, famred cliff face backing up the town. Tucked into a lengthly siesta at around 4, then went for a leg punishing, largely uphill jog, as the locals milled about their business. Bought up big at the local store and cooked up a mammoth past feast, accompanied by a bottled of very cheap 1.85 Euro vino (The 3 of us collectively have very unsophisticated palattes, and I've got little problem with the odd Goonbag or vat of cooking wine). Somehow we consumed half a bottle of olive oil in this meal, soaking bowls of it up with balsamic vinegar and ciabatta bread. In light of this, the jog i just went on was a pretty futile excercise.

We've noticed also that Rev's limited edition 'Talking Boony Doll' has started piping up again in the last couple of days with totally random comments, after being considerably mute for the past few months. His comments like 'how bout a beer', 'when do we go to the pub' and 'Got any Nachos?', usually come at very timely juncture. However, the other night he started mysteriously quacking like a duck, he woke us up another time in the middle of the night demanding booze, and some of other comments are getting to be very strange. It's good to have Boony on board, but he is a bit of a random.

Anyway, we washed down the pasta, wine, and ridiculous amount of pure oil with a sensational Gelato, before heading down to the beachside where groups of yanks necked bottles of local brew, taking in the sea breeze.

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I dig Cinque Terre

Keep that sucker up there

Pisa Plaza

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