Vernazza

We disembarked the main train line in Monterosso and caught the local back to Vernazza. It looks like a Spielberg stage set, tall narrow buildings with roof top gardens, garnished with balconies and painted in those Italian hues of peeling yellow, umber and sienna. I’d called Giacomo at the Lacanda Barbara from Monterosso and he said, sure, he had a room for two. Come on down. We came, we saw, we realized that we would be moving in the morning. When asked if we liked the room I replied, ....."well, it’s kinda like Jesus...no room at the inn." We moved in...laid down...the bed sank almost to the floor and reminded me of my hammock back home. It was a cell with a tiny barred window high in the wall....the room from hell...we were glad to have it, however, and glad to not be sleeping in the sand.

Straight away, the next morning, after the typical breakfast of rolls and cafe latte, we were on a mission to find another haunt and find one we did. At the Trattoria Gianni on Piazza Marconi. A wonderfully charming one it was, sanza bagno, decorated in an art nouveau style and containing a firm bed, with a small balcony overlooking the sea, the town, the hills and coastline beyond. A haven of heaven after our time in hell the night before.

Manarola

After moving into our new digs, it was off to the train station went we. Traveled south to the first of the Cinque Terre, Riomaggiore. Here we stopped at a small market and procured cheese, salami, a pear and some yogurt. Next we were on the "Via del Amore", the path of love, over looking the sea from high atop the hillside, heading for Manarola, the second of these jewels of the northwestern Italian coast. After strolling through this petite hillside village and finding ourselves locked out of the church on this sunday, we continued on to Corniglia. That’s not exactly right as we only attained the train station. The town was high above us and we were ready to sit and rest and wait for the train after our two and a half hour walk up and down the verdant hillside above the sea. A hillside of many small terraces, constructed to take advantage of a rich soil in a land of no level ground. A hillside of grape vines, producing the local vino rosso, the white wines the sciachetra (shock-ee-tra), a sweet, sherry like wine, that is delicious but dear and the grappa, a potent, brandy like libation, guaranteed to blister paint.

Vernazza

Now we trained back to vernazza, picked up some of that vino rosso and spent the late afternoon / early evening, resting up, uuummmmmmmmmmmm, for the evening meal after sampling the above mentioned oblations.

Dinner.....we ate at our hotel bar and splurged on a first course of tortalini with béchamel sauce, which we had seen being made earlier during the day and were dying to try (fantastic). Second course, muscali cipielli - stuffed mussels in tomato sauce, also great. 3...ensalata mista and for dessert, Rosemary had tira misu and I had the gelato misto. Also another bottle of vino rosso. Yes, we splurged.

After this marvelous meal we again climbed up those cardiac arresting steps through the alleys of hill side Vernazza to crash the crash of the totally spent and slightly, perhaps more than slightly, intoxicated.

We awoke late and indulged in indolence till 10:30 of the morning, by which time I was frantic with low blood sugar...pizza.....some kind of fruit, nut cake.....ham and cheese pinini....cafe latte....hang tough for a little longer and feel human once again....got groceries for lunch and back to the room.....R painted whilst I napped. Vernazza is a great place to practice "la dolche far niente", the sweetness of doing nothing...after my nap we lunched and I was off to sketch the town from an overlook on the trail to Monterosso, while Rosemary continued to work on her painting. What a beautiful, picture postcard of a town !! I drew for a couple of hours and went back to our room to apply paint to my drawing...paint...paint...paint and grab R by the hand and the remainder of last night’s wine and it’s off to the bay front to do what one does in a town that has nothing to do...watch the sunset.

Boats in Vernazza harbor

Just as the sun was going down the Catholic call and response could be heard from the church. While the men drink and watch the sunset and the tourists, the women are busy praying for their souls, hopefully ours too. We then climbed up the steep hillside to the vantage point I’d experienced earlier and watched the town light it’s lights and prepare for the evening...enchanting.....

For dinner this evening we’d decided to try our luck at the Trattoria "Da Sandro" where they serve the local fish specialties. Our luck was running good. Appetizer...acciughe bianche - anchovies split and smothered in olive oil and lemon juice - fresh of course and perhaps the only cooking they had received was in the lemon juice marinade, Italian sushi, first course...troffie agli scampi - a black, twisted, 2 inch long noodle, colored with squid ink with a langosta type scampi...quite intriguing...2) te game vernazza - baked and fried potatoes covered with fresh anchovies and they in turn covered with sautéed and marinated red peppers and the whole lot smothered in olive oil. "contorni" course (other things) spinaci saltati - the best spinach i’ve ever eaten, when queried about it’s preparation, our waitress told us it was simply boiled, tossed with olive oil, seasoned with salt and garnished with lemon, which we of course applied to the greens.....fantastic. A friend told us you couldn’t get a bad meal in italy, we found this to be true !!!

This was to be our last night in Italia and for us, our stay there was magic. We spent the remainder of this evening wandering about the bay front and strolling Vernazza’s only street before climbing the stair way to the heaven awaiting us...bed.

Soccer jerseys hung out to dry

We awoke to the ringing of the bells....Vernazza’s alarm clock. At seven each morning the church softly chimes 7 times and then loudly 40, next tapering off with 5 or 6 lesser to none. One doesn’t need a clock here, the time is provided to all, gratis.