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Date: September
2004 Reaching the Cinque Terre was not difficult - we based
ourselves in La Spezia, so took the airport shuttle from the
airport at Genoa into the city, to the train station. I
didn't find the Genoese very smiley; an old woman took violent
exception to our suitcases on the airport bus and I never
found out why. I couldn't get a word in edgewise in the
torrent of abuse in Italian, and obviously never got my point
across that you would expect suitcases on an airport shuttle
as that would appear to be its function. So I retreated
behind my sunglasses and aloof Britishness whilst she muttered
aggressively at my profile the entire journey. The train
station was a lofty busy place, and we found our train for La
Spezia - one which had a double decker observation carriage
and did not object to suitcases. There are glimpses of
the coastline along the way, although the journey seemed to
take an inordinate amount of time, stopping at every available
halt along the line.
Our
hotel was the other end of the town from the train station at
La Spezia, near the waterfront and we took a taxi. The
following day we took a boat to Porto Venere to check the
times of the boats to the first of the villages, Rio Maggiore
and have a look round. It's a lovely town, and with
brilliant blue sky, sunshine and crystal clear sea, it isn't
hard to do research. The tall narrow houses were all
painted with different faded colour washes and huddled
together along the waterfront. It was very busy, boats
coming and going the whole time, even in late September, but
there was room for everyone. We explored La Spezia in
the evening; although not a tourist resort per se, it had a
lively pedestrianised street that led up towards the train
station from the waterfront with street cafes and restaurants,
but they did close early - end of the season perhaps?
We
started filming the next day, under glorious skies. As
the boat approaches Rio Maggiore, you get a wonderful overview
of the village, clinging precariously to the land, built
around an inventively covered ravine. It was busy and
colourful and lots of different accents on street level; up
above you heard the native Italian amidst the washing lines
and open casement windows. The first part of the walk is
the Via del Amore, which is easy and paved and takes about 40
minutes to walk around the edge of the land to the next
village. It was busy, but there was plenty of room and
wheelchairs and baby buggies shared the path with the walking
boots and flip-flops. I wasn't fooled though; I knew
this was the easy bit and that it would get progessively
harder as we walked through the vineyards and along dry stone
walls. We chose the lower coastal route because it
offered (we thought) the better views and more linear route -
but there are plenty of other walking paths of varying degrees
of difficulty higher up the cliffs, and through the higher
terraces. All along the top of the cliffs there are
sanctuaries and villages that you can visit, and the National
Park green buses also run between them.
All
of the five villages are picturesque and lovely and walking
between them was a treat. The sun was hot but the breeze
from the sea kept me comfortable, and on this trip I had opted
for sandals rather than boots to keep my feet cool. It
was busy everywhere, and the coastal trains were frequent,
passing for the most part within the mountains as they plied
between the villages and La Spezia and other large
towns. I can't imagine what it must be like in high
season - that's when the locals apparently leave for their
holidays, many renting out their properties for
tourists. The history of the Cinque Terre is interesting
and unique, and the National Park is doing a terrific job of
maintaining it's heritage and promoting it at the same time.
I think I liked Vernazza the most because it was the only
village with a piazza, which was wonderful at sunset; but
Monterosso had the beaches, and is bigger altogether with a
virtual aquarium and shops. We interviewed a local
family that owned a waterfront restaurant, and I was
particularly charmed by Santina, the tiny matriarch. The
food was truly excellent and the wine very drinkable, which is
why we caught the train back to La Spezia.
We
took longer to walk the paths because we film at snail's pace,
but it is possible to do all of the villages in one day, but
why would you want to? One young lady passed us running
- think of what she missed in her quest to spend the least
amount of time on those paths overlooking the unbelievably
blue sea? True hikers from any country uphold the
international etiquette of walking, but there were coachloads
of in this case American college kids, who had the impatience
of youth and barged along single tracks over dry stone walls
with a substantial drop without a by-your-leave or an excuse
me, or waiting for the walker actually on the path to reach
them before starting out. The beauty of our pace is that
everyone just passes us by and leaves us behind so there were
times on such a highly popular route that we were on our
own. We spent a week in the region, which is probably
enough for a normal tourist who actually gets to shop and go
into museums!
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E-mail
Debra at:
grindelwald_prods@lycos.com
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