Grazie to Merci

Today was a travel day from Riomaggiore, Italy to Nice, France. The long journey of 5 hours began around 9am and finished close to 4pm. Fortunately on my way out of town I ran into Mu and Hannah both of whom I met in Napoli and hiked Mt. Vesuio with. They had arrived yesterday, stayed in the same hostel as me, but in 3 different buildings our paths didn't cross. It was great to catch up with them before taking the train to Genova and then Ventimiglia: the last town before the Italy/France border. From there I would catch a more local train to Nice.

It was a smooth trip to Genova and I was able to get some quality reading done in my Jane Austen book. Pride and Prejudice down, Mansfield Park up next. I met another traveler from Minnesota about my age heading to Lake Como. Having a 45 minute wait for the next part of my journey I snagged a salami sandwich and chowed down on some olive crackers and these tasty wheat cookies I found in Riomaggiore. Made for a good lunch.

The trip to Ventimiglia was slow as this is one of the only trains that passes through many of hte smaller towns on the way toward France. We hit every stop and sometimes sat there for 20 minutes. You could tell when we were close to France. The architecture changed from the straight forward Italian to more embellished paintings around windows and cornices. Windows took a narrower and taller shape. House colors faded out a bit from the Italian brights.

It's strange transitioning from one country to another. Gearing up for a new language by learning new phrases and numbers starts to tax your brain. You gain a new perspective on the country you were just in by encountering a new culture. Italians are passionate and easily spurred to emotional responses from what I've witnessed. Their language flows together, but is easy to distinguish words. People speak relatively slow unless agitated or upset.

Sentences and syllables are drawn out for emphasis. Whenever public transit has arrived they move forward in a mob as if that will somehow help everyone getting on or improve their chance at getting a seat. There's usually one person (often elderly) who will stand right in front of the door to be first. Often there is a conversation with a nearby person about how they are somehow entitled to get in before anyone else.

The usual anxieties of making sure you detrain at the right stop accompanied my travel. All went well and I arrived in Nizza (Italian) or Nice (French). The hostel was literally down the street and around the corner from the train station. I was glad I didn't have to drag my bags around or try to figure out how to use the transit system just yet. With all my gear settled, I went out to find some dinner at a restaurant my guidebook suggested. La Table
Alziari in Old Town is a citrusy colorful place with really good food. I sampled the fried goat cheese salad (slice of goat cheese on a piece of thick bread grilled together) and a stew with carrots and mushrooms over pasta. I think the meat was lamb since the menu didn't mention boeuf (beef--learned this one from Julie and Julia). What a tasty meal! The stew was rich and meaty and the salad was light and pungent. It was a long walk to get here (about a half hour), but definitely worth it!

Beach Bum

When I woke up this morning I still thought hiking was a good idea. There were some shorter treks I could enjoy between Manarola and Corniglia and up N in Monterosso. I also wanted to do some laundry as it was free. There were only 4 words on the washer indicating wool, cotton, mixed and delicates. Everything else was in pictures that weren't all that descriptive I thought. I put in the clothes and soap, selected a temperature and it started to work. The mystery was how long it was going to take. After a half hour it was still washing. At an hour it was still going. After an hour and a half I knew the clothes had to be clean and it had just finished rinsing and spinning for about the 4th time. I managed to get it to stop and unlock the door. The hostel cleaning person had left 3 bed covers on the line and I didn't see the clothespins out there. Not wanting to lose my clothes to the street below by having them blow away, I hung them in the room. By the time I gathered my things together for the day and took the train to Monterosso I realized the flaw in my plan: I was way to tired from yesterday's hike to even think about walking up any hill today. Since I didn't spend much time in Monterosso village yesterday, I decided to wander the two part town and get a feel for it.

Monterosso stretches eastward from the sea into the hills. Like most of the other villages it's full of shops selling all kinds of food, beach wear and souvenirs. I paused in a church to get out of the warm sun. It had an interesting nautical theme [notice the hanging boat at the top center]as you can tell from the picture. A bit further to the N and divided by the train station coming through the mountains is Fegina. This town clearly has a focus: the beach. A wide walkway above the beach along the shore guides you to the town. In this region of the Mediterranean, beach means small, smooth stones. This seemed like a great place to chill for a while and eat some lunch. Kids ran all over seeing how close they could get to the chilly waves before getting wet. In Europe when you go to the beach and it's still a bit cool to wear a swimsuit around, the solution is to leave your pants on the beach and go about in your underwear. Everyone lounges about soaking up the sun and chatting about this and that. This was a very easy way to spend a couple hours--and I'm not really a beach person!

I had hoped to be back to the hostel around 2pm to try and meet up with Hannah who was coming in to town. I ended up staying at the beach until about 3pm. When I got back I noticed there were clothespins which was fortunate as most things were still quite damp. Still looking for something else to fill my time and slightly refreshed from my relaxing beach time, I thought I would try to walk to a nature center out on the point of Riomaggiore. I wound my way down to the marina and around the coast to a small cove beach where people were stretched out on the rocks. This was when I realized that it was a nature point, not a center like the map implied. Not feeling the need to walk up and around for the view I walked down to the beach and sat in the sun. There was a little boy with his dad and grandpa wandering the shore nearby who was throwing and then writing on rocks. Very cute.

I made my way back to finish off the rest of my rice and pepper dinner and to pack up some things. Two Australian girls who had arrived last night were back from hiking the Blue Trail so we chatted for a while about the hike and where our journeys would lead us next. Fortunately all my clothes dried out in time and everything fit into my bags. Italy has been fun, but it's time to move on to a new country.

Blue Trail #2

One of the most popular and well known trails in Cinque Terre Park is the Blue Trail which runs along the coastline and weaves through all 5 villages along the way. Total travel distance is 9km (not including exploration of the villages) and is supposed to take 5 hours. I planned to go to the 11am mass at the church just up the hill and around the corner from the hostel and then to start hiking. Mass was really nice for a small resort town. Their chapel is relatively simple though still in classic Italian style with white marble and paintings here and there. The altar was covered with calla lilly flowers among some pink and purple hyacinth looking ones. Everything was in Italian as expected, but I wasn't lucky enough to get one of the bulletins to be able to follow along. I did get half of Jesus in bread form though.

From here I made a quick internet stop, grabbed some lunch and then headed out to hike. I started in Riomaggiore around 1:30pm and on the smooth, paved path easily made it to Manarola in 15 minutes. So much for a half hour! Manarola looks much like Riomaggiore except it's smaller, so nothing really new to report. The next leg of the hike to Corniglia was listed at 30 mins. so I expected another 15 minute walk. This portion was much steeper with rougher rocky terrain and I ran into more slow people. With a few breaks in-between I think it took about 45 mins. When you reach Corniglia there is an unexpected 382 step climb up to the city where the blue trail continues. Oi. That took a while. I decided to wander the city since I didn't want to make the stairway climb again to come back. The town is a bit more stone than some of the others. It's quaint and cozy tucked up into the hillside. I was delighted to find a public bathroom and from there moved on to the third part toward Vernazza said to take 1.5 hours.

A sign at the beginning of the trail mentioned that this was the only path between these two cities up until 100 years ago. Mostly it existed for trade and care of crops in the area. Interesting how self-sufficient and independent towns can be for the most part. The path was mostly dirt and small rocks winding up and down through the ridges and valleys. By now my bag started to get rather heavy and needed shifting to opposite shoulders often. The views were excellent though. With a few breaks along the way and some snackage, I ended up in Vernazza in about an hour and 15 minutes. This part of the trail felt like the longest distance I had traveled. It could have just been how tired I felt at that point. Vernazza is located literally on the water. Half of the town is out on a small peninsula and the other half is back into the valley with the trail crossing in-between them. I pulled up a bench for a good 15 minutes and debated whether to grab a train and do the last portion tomorrow or to just finish it all today. After resting I felt better and decided it was still early enough that if I finished in the suggested 2 hours I would still be done by 6:30pm and have a chance to get back and rest before dinner.

The final part of the trip to Monterosso was actually quite pleasant. The initial part was lots of steps and steep inclines, but about halfway through this leveled out and became mostly downhill. The sun really started to shine brightly and I had to shed a layer and roll up my pant legs. By the time I was within easy view of the city it had cooled off considerably and gotten windy. The weather in Italy has been really manic--up and sunny one hour and down and rainy the next. Bizarre. By the time I reached Monterosso I had no energy to explore the town and so headed right for the train station. I even passed up a gelato shop!

Back at the hostel I ran into one of my roommates named Erik from WA. We chatted for a bit over dinner (more leftovers for me) and I got some good tips on Nice, France where I'm headed next. I headed back to the train station to pick up some internet for an evening chat with my parents which meant I had to sit outside since the tourist office was closed. I was glad for an awning to keep out the rain and a planter to sit on. A busy day, but well worth the hike.

The Five Villages

I checked out of the hostel in Genova and decided to take the bus all the way to the Brignole Station instead of trying to navigate my way via bus to the Principe Station. Trains to Cinque Terre leave from both stations, so no problem there. The train was mostly empty until we got close to the 5 villages that are situated in Cinque Terre National Park. Even then, there was still plenty of space. Once I arrived in Riomaggiore (the last of the 5 villages counting from the N), I walked through a long tunnel decorated in mosaics with tile and rocks depicting scenes of Cinque Terre to get to the main part of town. From there it was a steep uphill climb to where the hostel was. It was taxing, but could have been worse. The room has 6 beds and isn't too bad. Kitchenette, bathroom, TV and free laundry are all part of this room. Kind of excited to wash some clothes.

The park was set up to preserve the fragile coastline in this part of Italy. I'm not sure why it was endangered or why it's so fragile. Any information I have come across in the town where I am staying has been in Italian. It is beautiful coastline. Jagged rocks with striated patterns stick out along the water where they are pounded by the teal blue sea water. The rocks have multi-colored bands running through them of yellows, greys and blacks. Everywhere you look along the coast are picture perfect views. Two men in thick sweaters and orange-yellow waders pick through their fishing net. Boats of every color line one of the streets down by the water's edge where a string of orange buoys marks the way out into the sea. The houses rise like brightly colored red, orange, yellow, green, peach and cream towers from the rocky hillsides terraced into various levels with staircases, elevators and ramped streets linking them together.

Being such a small town, though the largest of the 5 villages, there is a limited supply of food items available. Two small street shops supply most needs, but bread is hard to come by and I haven't seen any fresh meat--only luncheon meat [which I'm still not ready to eat after the Bologna dinner incident]. For dinner I wanted to make a concerted effort to use up my 500g box of rice that I've carried with me since Firenze as I have been without cooking facilities. The famed dish of the area is pasta and pesto. I thought "Why not try rice and pesto? I can call it Italian Rice when I open up my cafe someday." Having learned in Firenze that I need to limit how much I buy so I can actually eat it in the days allotted, I chose some pesto, a small red pepper and two tiny zucchinis to garnish my rice. With some olive oil and garlic it all turned out pretty good for not having spices and in about an hour. The only improvement I would make is to add a bit of salt and pepper. Surprisingly the pesto added a great flavor with the sweetness of the pepper.

Not wanting to spend the entire evening indoors, I went for a walk after dinner thinking I might get some gelato if the shop was still open. I discovered that a coop shop across the street was miraculously open. Both branches 1 and 2 were closed this afternoon. I wandered in hoping to find some bread for breakfast and walked out with raisin loaded focaccia, peach juice boxes and some crunchy, lightly sugared cookies. I walked to a nearby bench and opened the cookies right away. The cookies really hit the spot. Just enough sweetness and lots of crunch. Yum. I also located two churches I could check out tomorrow for Pascqua (Easter). Originally I think I had intended to be in a larger town to see the pageantry of Pascqua in Italy or France, but I think a small resort town celebration will be equally interesting.