Friday, 11 June 2010
Day Ten – The Lunch To End All Lunches, Then Home
The sky was overcast this morning, for the first time since we arrived in Italy. We spent some time packing, then went downstairs for a quiet breakfast. After munching through the usual, we went back upstairs to put the last of our stuff in our bags and dragged it all down to the car.
We headed north, in the general direction of Torino, to spend the day exploring hill towns to the east of Torino, per Tim’s recommendation. We first stopped at Cocconato, a cute little village perched on it’s hill. Unlike a lot of the smaller towns we’d driven through, this one seemed a bit busier even though it was pretty tiny. We stopped at the little cafe for a cappuccino to see us through the rest of the day, and to waste a bit of time before lunch.
Next we drove down the hill, following the signs for the Conbipel factory outlet – they really outdid themselves with the signage. We found Conbipel without any problems, but it took us a minute or two to find the restaurant, despite the fact that we drove past it twice without noticing it. In our defense, we were distracted by the sheer oddness of Conbipel – three or four giant warehouse looking buildings with huge parking lots all around, completely full of cars. Despite the number of cars around, there was no traffic and no people in sight. Spooky – looked like the beginning of a zombie-attack movie.
We finally found Restaurant Caccina Rosengana and went in to ask about a table for lunch. It was noon, but they weren’t quite ready – they asked us to come back in 15 minutes. Oddly, the woman we spoke to didn’t speak very much English, but was fluent in French, so we managed quite well without Italian or English at all.
While we waited, we walked over to the closest Conbipel outlet store and went in, not quite sure what to expect. What we found we definitely were NOT expecting from a factory outlet. It looked exactly like a big North American department store, full of mens and women’s clothes. The only real difference was that everything seemed to be own-brand, and other than a bunch of employees folding clothes, it was completely empty. I kept a close eye out for zombies, as you can never be too sure in these sorts of situations.
We wasted our required 15 minutes and walked back next door to the restaurant, where we already had a table waiting for us, complete with a basket of bread and a stack of grissini (really thin bread sticks). I sampled a bunch of the grissini as they are hugely addictive, which in retrospect was a mistake. We ordered the “typical” menu which included antipasti and a few courses, as all good Italian meals do. We were looking forward to it, but were somewhat surprised by the sheer number of courses we had – eight in all, plus coffee at the end.
Lunch included (I’m documenting, so that we’ll remember): bresola wrapped around some sort of a soft cheese/cream cheese type filling, followed by spinach and ricotta balls in carrot pure, then asparagus mousse in a puff pastry shell, with sliced veal with tuna sauce to round out the antipasti course. Yes, that was just antipasti. The first course was split in two – ravioli filled with veal, pork, and rabbit in a sage butter, then spaghetti in a tomato and sausage sauce. Our main course was roasted veal in a butter and aromatic herb sauce, with mixed fresh veggies. Finally, for desert we had a tasting plate of three treats – a chocolate panna cotta type thing, a cherry tart, and a very tasty semifreddo. I’m feeling full again just writing it all down.
After our epic lunch, we were running a bit late (it took a glorious two and a half hours, all told), so we decided to skip the trip to the abbey up the road and just head straight to the airport. We programmed Tracy the satnav and set off, very full and very happy with our choice of lunch venues.
We made it to the airport with only a little confusion – Tracy didn’t feel like following the same route as the signs appeared to want us to go, but she got us there in the end. We dropped off the car, checked in and dropped the bag, and went through security. Both of us are very sad that we have to leave Italy and are definitely not looking forward to going back to real life tomorrow, although I’m looking forward to sleeping in our own bed again. Until next time...
We headed north, in the general direction of Torino, to spend the day exploring hill towns to the east of Torino, per Tim’s recommendation. We first stopped at Cocconato, a cute little village perched on it’s hill. Unlike a lot of the smaller towns we’d driven through, this one seemed a bit busier even though it was pretty tiny. We stopped at the little cafe for a cappuccino to see us through the rest of the day, and to waste a bit of time before lunch.
Next we drove down the hill, following the signs for the Conbipel factory outlet – they really outdid themselves with the signage. We found Conbipel without any problems, but it took us a minute or two to find the restaurant, despite the fact that we drove past it twice without noticing it. In our defense, we were distracted by the sheer oddness of Conbipel – three or four giant warehouse looking buildings with huge parking lots all around, completely full of cars. Despite the number of cars around, there was no traffic and no people in sight. Spooky – looked like the beginning of a zombie-attack movie.
We finally found Restaurant Caccina Rosengana and went in to ask about a table for lunch. It was noon, but they weren’t quite ready – they asked us to come back in 15 minutes. Oddly, the woman we spoke to didn’t speak very much English, but was fluent in French, so we managed quite well without Italian or English at all.
While we waited, we walked over to the closest Conbipel outlet store and went in, not quite sure what to expect. What we found we definitely were NOT expecting from a factory outlet. It looked exactly like a big North American department store, full of mens and women’s clothes. The only real difference was that everything seemed to be own-brand, and other than a bunch of employees folding clothes, it was completely empty. I kept a close eye out for zombies, as you can never be too sure in these sorts of situations.
We wasted our required 15 minutes and walked back next door to the restaurant, where we already had a table waiting for us, complete with a basket of bread and a stack of grissini (really thin bread sticks). I sampled a bunch of the grissini as they are hugely addictive, which in retrospect was a mistake. We ordered the “typical” menu which included antipasti and a few courses, as all good Italian meals do. We were looking forward to it, but were somewhat surprised by the sheer number of courses we had – eight in all, plus coffee at the end.
Lunch included (I’m documenting, so that we’ll remember): bresola wrapped around some sort of a soft cheese/cream cheese type filling, followed by spinach and ricotta balls in carrot pure, then asparagus mousse in a puff pastry shell, with sliced veal with tuna sauce to round out the antipasti course. Yes, that was just antipasti. The first course was split in two – ravioli filled with veal, pork, and rabbit in a sage butter, then spaghetti in a tomato and sausage sauce. Our main course was roasted veal in a butter and aromatic herb sauce, with mixed fresh veggies. Finally, for desert we had a tasting plate of three treats – a chocolate panna cotta type thing, a cherry tart, and a very tasty semifreddo. I’m feeling full again just writing it all down.
After our epic lunch, we were running a bit late (it took a glorious two and a half hours, all told), so we decided to skip the trip to the abbey up the road and just head straight to the airport. We programmed Tracy the satnav and set off, very full and very happy with our choice of lunch venues.
We made it to the airport with only a little confusion – Tracy didn’t feel like following the same route as the signs appeared to want us to go, but she got us there in the end. We dropped off the car, checked in and dropped the bag, and went through security. Both of us are very sad that we have to leave Italy and are definitely not looking forward to going back to real life tomorrow, although I’m looking forward to sleeping in our own bed again. Until next time...
Day Nine – It Got Hotter
After receiving our daily maps and instructions from Tim, we hit the road at the relatively early hour of 10:30, pointing Francesca back in the direction this time of Barbaresco. We got slightly lost again in San Diamano for the second time, as the road through the centre was still closed to pedestrians. There’s an old saying...something about those who cannot remember the past...
Despite the minor directional challenges, we made it to the town of Barbaresco in fairly good time. Francesca was much more comfortable since I discovered I could lower the seat – apparently whoever had it before me was very short. Typical that it took me until the penultimate day to realize that having my hair brush the roof wasn’t how the designers of this particular model had intended me to drive.
We parked Italian-style when we arrived in Barbaresco – up against a wall on the side of the road, not taking into account traffic patterns or parking regulations. To be fair, there were a row of cars parked there, not just us, but it still didn’t look particularly legal. On the other hand, it did seem normal, so we went with it.
Barbaresco turned out to be a quaint little town with a ruined ancient tower at the top of the hill with panoramic views over the valley below, a church with a loud bell tower, and loads of little bars and cafes. We hiked up the steep incline (okay, sauntered up the slight hill) to take in the views, then decided that we were thirsty. As we’d sampled Barolo in the Barolo valley earlier, what could be better than sipping Barbaresco in the village of Barbaresco?
We’d heard that one of the local wine shops poured slightly more generous glasses than the other, and had a brilliant view from their patio, so of course we stopped in there. The old guy running the tasting at Boffa winery was very excited to have us, and spoke high-speed enthusiastic Italian at us non-stop while pointing at his wine description folder and the bottles arranged around it. We adopted our normal strategy for high-speed enthusiastic Italian – grinning and nodding appreciatively at every pause.
This recommended and effective strategy resulted in us being sat down at one of the tables on the patio, two very large glasses of wine being placed in front of us, along with a fairly large bowl of cheese and a container of those skinny bread sticks that seem to accompany everything food and/or wine related around here.
The wine was almost as good as the view, and after sampling the two varieties on offer (initially the 2006 vintage, but after seeing how much we’d enjoyed it, the old guy insisted that we try the 2005 as well), we were forced to buy a bottle. We spent quite a bit of time sipping the wine and just relaxing, soaking up the scenery and the heat, which seemed to be steadily building, along with the humidity.
After lingering about as long as we could, we walked back down the hill to the car, which had become a little oven. I opened the door and the wave of heat which poured out forced me back a step – we had to open all the doors to let it cool off for a bit before we could get inside. When we finally did, the thermostat in the car read 39°C – blooming HOT. As we got driving, it dropped to 36°C which was a bit better, although still hotter than I think I’ve ever felt it in London.
It was about 1pm at this point and we were both feeling a bit peckish, so we drove to a nearby restaurant called Rabaya. For no apparent reason, we were the only ones there, which was odd. It was a little out of the way, but the food was excellent and fairly reasonably priced. We went for the four mixed antipasti, then we shared a bowl of slightly red gnocchi in an asparagus sauce – a bit odd, but actually quite tasty.
Lunch taken care of, we hit the road again, mindful of the large black clouds gathering in the distance. The heat seemed more oppressive and I’m sure the humidity had jumped again – perfect conditions for a classic thunder and lightning storm. We drove towards Neive, expecting the skies to open above us at any moment.
They didn’t, and we walked around Neive for a little while, taking a few photos and generally poking about the place. There didn’t seem to be a whole lot going on in town on Sunday afternoon, and after a fairly short while we got back in the car and headed for our third stop of the day, the oddly named town of Mango.
Mango turned out to be actually quite difficult to find, but after a few false starts we made it up the top of the hill and found a place to park. We were immediately underwhelmed by Mango. Nothing seemed to be open other than a slightly dodgy cafe filled with local old guys who stared at us every time we walked past. We’d been told about the enoteca in Mango being particularly good so we thought we’d give that a go. The guy who was supposed to be working there was more interesting in talking to his girlfriend who was visiting (or at least to a girl who he possibly hoped would be his girlfriend, at least for a little while) and thus more or less ignored us. We looked at the very odd art in the back of the room and left.
We had hopes of finding another bar, other than the one in the parking lot with the old guy. In our efforts for liquid refreshment, we spent a while wandering around Mango looking for a likely location, but were ultimately disappointed. We got back in the car and started driving back to Asti, to enjoy our bottle of Barbaresco on the balcony.
Dinner tonight was to be served at Villa Sampaguita, cooked by Rina for our delectation. We went downstairs at 7pm and meet up with Sunil and his wife (the other guests at the B&B) and chatted for a bit (taking some time to inspect the geese, the rabbit, and the chickens) before dinner was served.
The food was excellent, much better than I’d expected. We started with an antipasti dish of grilled aubergine with fresh tomato, olive oil, and pine nuts as one course, and grilled peppers with the local tuna sauce as the other option. That was followed by ravioli filled with some sort of green filling (I’m pretty sure there was some sort of swiss chard type vegetable in it, as well as a bit of some sort of soft cheese. We then had chicken poached in white wine with olives and sun-dried tomato, finished off finally with homemade semifreddo.
All delicious, and all served with glasses of Tim’s homemade organic wine, produced from grapes harvested in the vineyard on the property.
Despite a few rumbled of thunder in the distance and a couple of very large drops of rain, the weather held out. I’d been hoping for the drama of a full lightning storm, which would have at least cleared the haze from the sky, but no such luck. On the other hand, it’s becoming summer in London, which means a few more months of cold and drizzle, so that’s something to look forward to when we get home.
Tomorrow is our last day in Italy for this trip, and neither of us are looking forward to going home. Beyond not wanting to go back to work, we’re both enjoying our time here too much. Tomorrow we have more vineyard visits and probably a tasty lunch planned before our early evening flight back to London. Should be a good day.
Despite the minor directional challenges, we made it to the town of Barbaresco in fairly good time. Francesca was much more comfortable since I discovered I could lower the seat – apparently whoever had it before me was very short. Typical that it took me until the penultimate day to realize that having my hair brush the roof wasn’t how the designers of this particular model had intended me to drive.
We parked Italian-style when we arrived in Barbaresco – up against a wall on the side of the road, not taking into account traffic patterns or parking regulations. To be fair, there were a row of cars parked there, not just us, but it still didn’t look particularly legal. On the other hand, it did seem normal, so we went with it.
Barbaresco turned out to be a quaint little town with a ruined ancient tower at the top of the hill with panoramic views over the valley below, a church with a loud bell tower, and loads of little bars and cafes. We hiked up the steep incline (okay, sauntered up the slight hill) to take in the views, then decided that we were thirsty. As we’d sampled Barolo in the Barolo valley earlier, what could be better than sipping Barbaresco in the village of Barbaresco?
We’d heard that one of the local wine shops poured slightly more generous glasses than the other, and had a brilliant view from their patio, so of course we stopped in there. The old guy running the tasting at Boffa winery was very excited to have us, and spoke high-speed enthusiastic Italian at us non-stop while pointing at his wine description folder and the bottles arranged around it. We adopted our normal strategy for high-speed enthusiastic Italian – grinning and nodding appreciatively at every pause.
This recommended and effective strategy resulted in us being sat down at one of the tables on the patio, two very large glasses of wine being placed in front of us, along with a fairly large bowl of cheese and a container of those skinny bread sticks that seem to accompany everything food and/or wine related around here.
The wine was almost as good as the view, and after sampling the two varieties on offer (initially the 2006 vintage, but after seeing how much we’d enjoyed it, the old guy insisted that we try the 2005 as well), we were forced to buy a bottle. We spent quite a bit of time sipping the wine and just relaxing, soaking up the scenery and the heat, which seemed to be steadily building, along with the humidity.
After lingering about as long as we could, we walked back down the hill to the car, which had become a little oven. I opened the door and the wave of heat which poured out forced me back a step – we had to open all the doors to let it cool off for a bit before we could get inside. When we finally did, the thermostat in the car read 39°C – blooming HOT. As we got driving, it dropped to 36°C which was a bit better, although still hotter than I think I’ve ever felt it in London.
It was about 1pm at this point and we were both feeling a bit peckish, so we drove to a nearby restaurant called Rabaya. For no apparent reason, we were the only ones there, which was odd. It was a little out of the way, but the food was excellent and fairly reasonably priced. We went for the four mixed antipasti, then we shared a bowl of slightly red gnocchi in an asparagus sauce – a bit odd, but actually quite tasty.
Lunch taken care of, we hit the road again, mindful of the large black clouds gathering in the distance. The heat seemed more oppressive and I’m sure the humidity had jumped again – perfect conditions for a classic thunder and lightning storm. We drove towards Neive, expecting the skies to open above us at any moment.
They didn’t, and we walked around Neive for a little while, taking a few photos and generally poking about the place. There didn’t seem to be a whole lot going on in town on Sunday afternoon, and after a fairly short while we got back in the car and headed for our third stop of the day, the oddly named town of Mango.
Mango turned out to be actually quite difficult to find, but after a few false starts we made it up the top of the hill and found a place to park. We were immediately underwhelmed by Mango. Nothing seemed to be open other than a slightly dodgy cafe filled with local old guys who stared at us every time we walked past. We’d been told about the enoteca in Mango being particularly good so we thought we’d give that a go. The guy who was supposed to be working there was more interesting in talking to his girlfriend who was visiting (or at least to a girl who he possibly hoped would be his girlfriend, at least for a little while) and thus more or less ignored us. We looked at the very odd art in the back of the room and left.
We had hopes of finding another bar, other than the one in the parking lot with the old guy. In our efforts for liquid refreshment, we spent a while wandering around Mango looking for a likely location, but were ultimately disappointed. We got back in the car and started driving back to Asti, to enjoy our bottle of Barbaresco on the balcony.
Dinner tonight was to be served at Villa Sampaguita, cooked by Rina for our delectation. We went downstairs at 7pm and meet up with Sunil and his wife (the other guests at the B&B) and chatted for a bit (taking some time to inspect the geese, the rabbit, and the chickens) before dinner was served.
The food was excellent, much better than I’d expected. We started with an antipasti dish of grilled aubergine with fresh tomato, olive oil, and pine nuts as one course, and grilled peppers with the local tuna sauce as the other option. That was followed by ravioli filled with some sort of green filling (I’m pretty sure there was some sort of swiss chard type vegetable in it, as well as a bit of some sort of soft cheese. We then had chicken poached in white wine with olives and sun-dried tomato, finished off finally with homemade semifreddo.
All delicious, and all served with glasses of Tim’s homemade organic wine, produced from grapes harvested in the vineyard on the property.
Despite a few rumbled of thunder in the distance and a couple of very large drops of rain, the weather held out. I’d been hoping for the drama of a full lightning storm, which would have at least cleared the haze from the sky, but no such luck. On the other hand, it’s becoming summer in London, which means a few more months of cold and drizzle, so that’s something to look forward to when we get home.
Tomorrow is our last day in Italy for this trip, and neither of us are looking forward to going home. Beyond not wanting to go back to work, we’re both enjoying our time here too much. Tomorrow we have more vineyard visits and probably a tasty lunch planned before our early evening flight back to London. Should be a good day.
Day Eight – Bring On The Bull
Today we had decided to head into the biggest city in the area – Torino (better known as Turin outside of Italy). We got up and had a relatively quick breakfast, again getting excellent directions and advice from B&B host Tim before setting out in trusty Francesca.
We drove for what seemed like ages before finding the Autostrada, however it was fairly quick from there. The people that were at the B&B mentioned this morning that they’d been through Torino the night before but hadn’t stopped as they didn’t really get a good feeling about it, so we weren’t sure what to expect. We did manage to get lost a few times despite the directions as we drove it, but found the large underground parking complex at Piazza Vittorio Veneto without too much trouble (given that we get lost wherever we go). Driving into town, Torino seemed pretty average – a bit industrial on the outskirts, a bit convoluted and busy as we got closer to the interesting bits.
We dropped off the car at the parking complex and headed out on foot. We were immediately entranced by the covered porticos leading up the road – apparently Torino is known for them. The architecture reminded us quite a bit of Bordeaux, which in turn reminded us of Paris, for some reason. All of the shops along Via Po from the parking lot to Piazza Castello where absolutely beautiful – ornate farmacias and shops that evidently used to be much more grand than they currently are.
There was some sort of event going on in Torino for the weekend, and much preparation was underway as we arrived. The police were out in full force, all three branches as far as we could tell (there are two federal branches apparently, and the Torino force themselves). Despite that, we found our way to the beginning of a walking tour in a guidebook provided by Tim.
Torino is a beautiful city. We had a great time wandering around before finding a place for lunch in the medieval twisty windy part of town (no idea where it was now). We found on the menu a sort of Caprese salad that consisted of a sliced tomato and a 250 gram ball of real buffalo mozzarella. The pizza and bruschetta seemed somewhat secondary to that to be honest.
We continued the walking tour after lunch, but it was starting to get quite hot. Not long after, we stopped at the Piazza Della Consolata and went into the Santuarino Della Consolata chuch to cool off and look at the spectacular interior. It is definitely worth a visit in – ornate doesn’t even begin to describe it – easily one of the most beautiful churches we’ve ever been in (and we’ve seen a few).
After the church, we felt a quick drink was in order. Conveniently located directly across the Piazza was Al Bicerin, a famous local coffee shop. Jamie had a glass of local bubbly and I had the drink named after the shop (or vice versa, I’m not sure which) – coffee, chocolate, and cream – very tasty.
The temperature was pushing 32°C again, and it was really quite humid in the city. Both Jamie and I were pretty much done with the walking and sightseeing, so we headed back to the car and it’s beautiful air conditioning – how did people live before that sweet invention?
Jamie wanted to drive up to Superga – a church on a hill just across from Torino, from which apparently you can get the most amazing views of the city and all the way to the Alps. The drive up was entertaining (if you like driving – loads of switchbacks up a very steep hill), although the haze over Piedmont prevented us from actually seeing the Alps. I can imagine that if it was a really clear day, the view would be amazing. On the other hand, I saw loads of clearly insane cyclists riding up the mountain, and loads of REALLY nice motorcycles at the top.
We took the back roads route on our trip back to Asti, avoiding the Autostrada. Not the most scenic drive through many of the little towns on route, but entertaining nonetheless. It turns out that Italian rural local radio is every bit as bad as rural French local radio, however we can’t understand as much of it. Oddly, this is the first trip to Italy in the last 7 years that we haven’t heard that damn song by “Evanescence” – we tend to hear that almost incessantly every time we’re away from home.
We stopped for a take-away pizza at Riostorante Villa Fernando, just up the road from Ville Sampagiuta. Evidently they don’t get a lot of tourists stopping in (it is way out of the way from anything) and were very excited that they had actual real live Canadians in the shop. We ordered our two takeaway pizzas and a bottle of wine, and were given a few postcards from Asti as a memento – they only requested that we send a postcard back from Canada to them (we didn’t have the heart or level of Italian to explain that we don’t actually live in Canada anymore – we’re going to get our parents to sent a post card from Canada on our behalf).
We sat on the patio of the B&B to eat our pizza and enjoy the late afternoon/early evening sun. The pizza was really quite tasty, and the view over the trees and surrounding hills was amazing. We spent quite a bit of time sitting and relaxing, before heading inside (we’d run out of wine, and needed to open another bottle).
We sat in the communal sitting room and enjoyed a good portion of the bottle of wine from Rivetto before another new couple staying at Villa Sampaguita joined us. Both are in I.T., so we of course got on quite well (Jamie may have felt a little out of place). Tim provided us with yet another bottle, this time of wine which he had made from his own vineyard. We may have stayed up a bit too late, however we had an excellent time. I can’t think of a better way to end a day – a very tasty bottle of wine in Italy, having a conversation with new friends.
We drove for what seemed like ages before finding the Autostrada, however it was fairly quick from there. The people that were at the B&B mentioned this morning that they’d been through Torino the night before but hadn’t stopped as they didn’t really get a good feeling about it, so we weren’t sure what to expect. We did manage to get lost a few times despite the directions as we drove it, but found the large underground parking complex at Piazza Vittorio Veneto without too much trouble (given that we get lost wherever we go). Driving into town, Torino seemed pretty average – a bit industrial on the outskirts, a bit convoluted and busy as we got closer to the interesting bits.
We dropped off the car at the parking complex and headed out on foot. We were immediately entranced by the covered porticos leading up the road – apparently Torino is known for them. The architecture reminded us quite a bit of Bordeaux, which in turn reminded us of Paris, for some reason. All of the shops along Via Po from the parking lot to Piazza Castello where absolutely beautiful – ornate farmacias and shops that evidently used to be much more grand than they currently are.
There was some sort of event going on in Torino for the weekend, and much preparation was underway as we arrived. The police were out in full force, all three branches as far as we could tell (there are two federal branches apparently, and the Torino force themselves). Despite that, we found our way to the beginning of a walking tour in a guidebook provided by Tim.
Torino is a beautiful city. We had a great time wandering around before finding a place for lunch in the medieval twisty windy part of town (no idea where it was now). We found on the menu a sort of Caprese salad that consisted of a sliced tomato and a 250 gram ball of real buffalo mozzarella. The pizza and bruschetta seemed somewhat secondary to that to be honest.
We continued the walking tour after lunch, but it was starting to get quite hot. Not long after, we stopped at the Piazza Della Consolata and went into the Santuarino Della Consolata chuch to cool off and look at the spectacular interior. It is definitely worth a visit in – ornate doesn’t even begin to describe it – easily one of the most beautiful churches we’ve ever been in (and we’ve seen a few).
After the church, we felt a quick drink was in order. Conveniently located directly across the Piazza was Al Bicerin, a famous local coffee shop. Jamie had a glass of local bubbly and I had the drink named after the shop (or vice versa, I’m not sure which) – coffee, chocolate, and cream – very tasty.
The temperature was pushing 32°C again, and it was really quite humid in the city. Both Jamie and I were pretty much done with the walking and sightseeing, so we headed back to the car and it’s beautiful air conditioning – how did people live before that sweet invention?
Jamie wanted to drive up to Superga – a church on a hill just across from Torino, from which apparently you can get the most amazing views of the city and all the way to the Alps. The drive up was entertaining (if you like driving – loads of switchbacks up a very steep hill), although the haze over Piedmont prevented us from actually seeing the Alps. I can imagine that if it was a really clear day, the view would be amazing. On the other hand, I saw loads of clearly insane cyclists riding up the mountain, and loads of REALLY nice motorcycles at the top.
We took the back roads route on our trip back to Asti, avoiding the Autostrada. Not the most scenic drive through many of the little towns on route, but entertaining nonetheless. It turns out that Italian rural local radio is every bit as bad as rural French local radio, however we can’t understand as much of it. Oddly, this is the first trip to Italy in the last 7 years that we haven’t heard that damn song by “Evanescence” – we tend to hear that almost incessantly every time we’re away from home.
We stopped for a take-away pizza at Riostorante Villa Fernando, just up the road from Ville Sampagiuta. Evidently they don’t get a lot of tourists stopping in (it is way out of the way from anything) and were very excited that they had actual real live Canadians in the shop. We ordered our two takeaway pizzas and a bottle of wine, and were given a few postcards from Asti as a memento – they only requested that we send a postcard back from Canada to them (we didn’t have the heart or level of Italian to explain that we don’t actually live in Canada anymore – we’re going to get our parents to sent a post card from Canada on our behalf).
We sat on the patio of the B&B to eat our pizza and enjoy the late afternoon/early evening sun. The pizza was really quite tasty, and the view over the trees and surrounding hills was amazing. We spent quite a bit of time sitting and relaxing, before heading inside (we’d run out of wine, and needed to open another bottle).
We sat in the communal sitting room and enjoyed a good portion of the bottle of wine from Rivetto before another new couple staying at Villa Sampaguita joined us. Both are in I.T., so we of course got on quite well (Jamie may have felt a little out of place). Tim provided us with yet another bottle, this time of wine which he had made from his own vineyard. We may have stayed up a bit too late, however we had an excellent time. I can’t think of a better way to end a day – a very tasty bottle of wine in Italy, having a conversation with new friends.
Day Seven – Time to Loosen Trousers
Today we woke up and started getting ready at 8:15, which was earlier than I would have liked as I’d had a cup of full-caffeine coffee the previous evening, which turned out not to be such a good idea. On the other hand, we thought we’d made a good early start to the day.
After getting ready, we went downstairs for breakfast. There were two other couples staying at Villa Sampaguita; a couple from Rhode Island in the States, and another from Canada. Two odd things with this – the guy from Rhode Island is also named Scott (not that odd I suppose), but the guy from Canada was working in the same office building in London England at the same time as Jamie – that is odd.
Breakfast was the usual sort for a B&B – coffee, orange juice, fresh fruit, yoghurt, granola, scrambled eggs (with fresh basil and tarragon, very tasty). We were regaled with tales and advice by the garrulous host Tim, to the point that breakfast stretched to almost an hour and a half – very entertaining. Tim gave us maps and itineraries for the day’s driving tour, and offered to call a friend of his whose family owns a vineyard in the Barolo region.
We finally hit the road at about 11am and headed south, in the general direction of Barolo. The Barolo valley is in the shape generally of a horseshoe, and we drove along the windy roads on the top of the ridge. Tim sent us along the back roads, which are always more interesting than the Autostrada, although the Italian drivers around me seemed intent on self-destruction – I’m convinced they learn to drive at the Mario Andretti School of Fast Motoring And Dangerous Passing (apparently I drive far too slowly, but 90km/hr on roads barely wide enough for my car, let alone two lanes, is just too fast for me).
Due to the late start (apparently), we went straight to the winery for a tour and a tasting. (www.rivetto.it) The Rivetto family has owned the winery and the land for four generations, and Enrico (the youngest son) was nice enough to show us around the place before giving us a taste of three of their wines. Being used to North American wine tastings, I thought he poured tasters like a champion. I actually had to ask him to pour me a slightly smaller portion as I had to drive, which brought a tear to my eye.
The wine was excellent – he gave us a 2007 Barbaresco, then a 2006 and 2005 Barolo. All were brilliant, and we were forced to buy two (I hate when that happens) – a Barbaresco to drink on our patio in Asti and a Barolo to take home with us.
We were there for a fair bit of time, and it was just about lunch time when we were finished. Enrico recommended a restaurant in the town just across the valley from the winery – Restaurant Italian in Serralunga. There were two menus – we chose the €20 option which included antipasti, a first course, a main course, and desert. As there was no listing of what each was, we weren’t really sure what we were going to get. The antipasti turned out to be sliced veal with a local tuna and mayonnaise sauce (which doesn’t sound like it would be good at all on veal, but was actually really good). First course was ravioli for Jamie and nebiolo risotto (nebiolo is a variety of local wine). Both again were very tasty. Mains was rabbit (coniglio sounds better than Bugs Bunny), and dessert was panna cotta and tiramisu.
Full and feeling very pleased with ourselves we walked back to the car to continue our driving tour. Both of us were a bit surprised with the heat – it seemed to have gotten significantly hotter while we were having lunch. The thermometer in the car confirmed it: 32°C on the 4th of June. I’m glad we had air conditioning.
Next on the itinerary was the town of Barolo itself. We found a parking lot just on the edge of town, but of course it was full. There was a sign for more parking further down the hill, so I pointed Francesca in that direction. Unfortunately they have decided to rip up and repave almost all of Barolo, so we were quickly turned around and headed back up to the main road. Still no parking in the lot, however there was a spot on the side of the highway (or whatever it was). I quickly darted over and managed to do a half-decent job of parallel parking, despite being on the wrong side of the road (I’ve re-learned how to drive in Britain on the left, and am finding being back on this side very disconcerting).
We walked down the hill we’d just driven back up and into Barolo. A quick look around revealed almost nothing of any interest – a few wine shops, oddly a museum dedicated solely to corkscrews (which they charged €4 to go into – a bit steep to look at a bunch of old corkscrews in my view), and a whole lot of construction. Maybe it would have been better without the lorries, cranes, and dirt everywhere.
We hiked back up the hill in the sweltering heat (we live in London, anything other than cold drizzle is sweltering to us) and got back in the car, air-con cranked up to the max. We drove down the hill and back up again to see the view from the top of La Morra, as it’s one of the highest spots around and Enrico had said that the views from up there were the best. He was right – from the medieval fortification looked down the entire Barolo valley, all the way to the Alps in the far distance. We thought about stopping for another bottle of wine, but were parked in a customer parking space in front of the local grocery store (we’d been in to buy water, so we were technically customers) and felt a bit guilty about using their reserved space, so we headed back down the hill.
We’d done a fair bit of driving so far, and were about an hour away from home, so we decided to head back and have a glass of wine on the balcony while we waited for a reasonable hour to go for dinner. It turned out to be a very good plan.
I didn’t feel like doing much more driving today, so we chose another of the recommended restaurants – this one quite close to the B&B. It is one of the oddest-located fine dining establishments I’ve ever seen – wedged behind a gas station on the road between Asti and Torino.
La Grotta is evidently one of the most famous restaurants in Asti (according to their literature), and sure enough, on the wall in the lobby is a picture of Pope John Paul II shaking hands with the chefs and the menu they served him. I figure if it’s good enough for the Pope, it’s good enough for me.
We felt a bit under-dressed, as all of the waiters were in white dinner jackets, and everything was served on trolleys – very old-fashioned and elegant. Everyone tells us that Piedmont is known for their antipasti, so we had the “Mixed Lean Meats” as it was described on the menu. It turned out to be a trolley laden with all sorts of delicious treats that the waiter served us a selection of – including: boiled egg with mayonnaise, a sort of potato and tuna salad, beats, veal with tuna mayonnaise, veal tongue with sauce (we didn’t find out that’s what it was until after we’d eaten it), tomato and mozzarella, and others.
We split a first course of baked lasagne, which was quite tasty; although I think based on the size of our main courses we could have easily skipped it. Jamie went for the veal Milanese (otherwise known a schnitzel), and I had saltimbocca alla romana (veal with sage and prosciutto). Both were excellent but GIANT – double or triple what I would have expected at home. We managed to eat a good chunk of both dishes but neither of us could finish; there was just too much. The waiter brought the dessert trolley over, and everything looked so appetizing. We were both too full to really think about it, and we had to decline. A tragedy. I found room for a decaf espresso, but even than was a stretch.
We drove back to the B&B and set up on the balcony for a final glass of wine. I almost immediately got a giant mosquito bite on my toe, which hurts like hell – hate those little flying bastards. We quickly adjourned inside and closed the screen – discretion being the better part of valour. A slightly itchy and swollen end to an excellent and very filling day.
After getting ready, we went downstairs for breakfast. There were two other couples staying at Villa Sampaguita; a couple from Rhode Island in the States, and another from Canada. Two odd things with this – the guy from Rhode Island is also named Scott (not that odd I suppose), but the guy from Canada was working in the same office building in London England at the same time as Jamie – that is odd.
Breakfast was the usual sort for a B&B – coffee, orange juice, fresh fruit, yoghurt, granola, scrambled eggs (with fresh basil and tarragon, very tasty). We were regaled with tales and advice by the garrulous host Tim, to the point that breakfast stretched to almost an hour and a half – very entertaining. Tim gave us maps and itineraries for the day’s driving tour, and offered to call a friend of his whose family owns a vineyard in the Barolo region.
We finally hit the road at about 11am and headed south, in the general direction of Barolo. The Barolo valley is in the shape generally of a horseshoe, and we drove along the windy roads on the top of the ridge. Tim sent us along the back roads, which are always more interesting than the Autostrada, although the Italian drivers around me seemed intent on self-destruction – I’m convinced they learn to drive at the Mario Andretti School of Fast Motoring And Dangerous Passing (apparently I drive far too slowly, but 90km/hr on roads barely wide enough for my car, let alone two lanes, is just too fast for me).
Due to the late start (apparently), we went straight to the winery for a tour and a tasting. (www.rivetto.it) The Rivetto family has owned the winery and the land for four generations, and Enrico (the youngest son) was nice enough to show us around the place before giving us a taste of three of their wines. Being used to North American wine tastings, I thought he poured tasters like a champion. I actually had to ask him to pour me a slightly smaller portion as I had to drive, which brought a tear to my eye.
The wine was excellent – he gave us a 2007 Barbaresco, then a 2006 and 2005 Barolo. All were brilliant, and we were forced to buy two (I hate when that happens) – a Barbaresco to drink on our patio in Asti and a Barolo to take home with us.
We were there for a fair bit of time, and it was just about lunch time when we were finished. Enrico recommended a restaurant in the town just across the valley from the winery – Restaurant Italian in Serralunga. There were two menus – we chose the €20 option which included antipasti, a first course, a main course, and desert. As there was no listing of what each was, we weren’t really sure what we were going to get. The antipasti turned out to be sliced veal with a local tuna and mayonnaise sauce (which doesn’t sound like it would be good at all on veal, but was actually really good). First course was ravioli for Jamie and nebiolo risotto (nebiolo is a variety of local wine). Both again were very tasty. Mains was rabbit (coniglio sounds better than Bugs Bunny), and dessert was panna cotta and tiramisu.
Full and feeling very pleased with ourselves we walked back to the car to continue our driving tour. Both of us were a bit surprised with the heat – it seemed to have gotten significantly hotter while we were having lunch. The thermometer in the car confirmed it: 32°C on the 4th of June. I’m glad we had air conditioning.
Next on the itinerary was the town of Barolo itself. We found a parking lot just on the edge of town, but of course it was full. There was a sign for more parking further down the hill, so I pointed Francesca in that direction. Unfortunately they have decided to rip up and repave almost all of Barolo, so we were quickly turned around and headed back up to the main road. Still no parking in the lot, however there was a spot on the side of the highway (or whatever it was). I quickly darted over and managed to do a half-decent job of parallel parking, despite being on the wrong side of the road (I’ve re-learned how to drive in Britain on the left, and am finding being back on this side very disconcerting).
We walked down the hill we’d just driven back up and into Barolo. A quick look around revealed almost nothing of any interest – a few wine shops, oddly a museum dedicated solely to corkscrews (which they charged €4 to go into – a bit steep to look at a bunch of old corkscrews in my view), and a whole lot of construction. Maybe it would have been better without the lorries, cranes, and dirt everywhere.
We hiked back up the hill in the sweltering heat (we live in London, anything other than cold drizzle is sweltering to us) and got back in the car, air-con cranked up to the max. We drove down the hill and back up again to see the view from the top of La Morra, as it’s one of the highest spots around and Enrico had said that the views from up there were the best. He was right – from the medieval fortification looked down the entire Barolo valley, all the way to the Alps in the far distance. We thought about stopping for another bottle of wine, but were parked in a customer parking space in front of the local grocery store (we’d been in to buy water, so we were technically customers) and felt a bit guilty about using their reserved space, so we headed back down the hill.
We’d done a fair bit of driving so far, and were about an hour away from home, so we decided to head back and have a glass of wine on the balcony while we waited for a reasonable hour to go for dinner. It turned out to be a very good plan.
I didn’t feel like doing much more driving today, so we chose another of the recommended restaurants – this one quite close to the B&B. It is one of the oddest-located fine dining establishments I’ve ever seen – wedged behind a gas station on the road between Asti and Torino.
La Grotta is evidently one of the most famous restaurants in Asti (according to their literature), and sure enough, on the wall in the lobby is a picture of Pope John Paul II shaking hands with the chefs and the menu they served him. I figure if it’s good enough for the Pope, it’s good enough for me.
We felt a bit under-dressed, as all of the waiters were in white dinner jackets, and everything was served on trolleys – very old-fashioned and elegant. Everyone tells us that Piedmont is known for their antipasti, so we had the “Mixed Lean Meats” as it was described on the menu. It turned out to be a trolley laden with all sorts of delicious treats that the waiter served us a selection of – including: boiled egg with mayonnaise, a sort of potato and tuna salad, beats, veal with tuna mayonnaise, veal tongue with sauce (we didn’t find out that’s what it was until after we’d eaten it), tomato and mozzarella, and others.
We split a first course of baked lasagne, which was quite tasty; although I think based on the size of our main courses we could have easily skipped it. Jamie went for the veal Milanese (otherwise known a schnitzel), and I had saltimbocca alla romana (veal with sage and prosciutto). Both were excellent but GIANT – double or triple what I would have expected at home. We managed to eat a good chunk of both dishes but neither of us could finish; there was just too much. The waiter brought the dessert trolley over, and everything looked so appetizing. We were both too full to really think about it, and we had to decline. A tragedy. I found room for a decaf espresso, but even than was a stretch.
We drove back to the B&B and set up on the balcony for a final glass of wine. I almost immediately got a giant mosquito bite on my toe, which hurts like hell – hate those little flying bastards. We quickly adjourned inside and closed the screen – discretion being the better part of valour. A slightly itchy and swollen end to an excellent and very filling day.
Day Six – Goodbye Ocean, Hello Mountains
We got up this morning for the last time in Manarola. It was actually quite overcast for the first time, and we packed our bags feeling almost as gloomy as the weather. We’d loved our five days in the Cinque Terre and didn’t really want to leave.
We rolled our suitcase down to our little cafe for breakfast and had a leisurely cappuccino and pastry – we didn’t have to be at the train until noon so had a bit of time to kill. We spent about as much time as we could nursing our coffees before deciding to sit on the seats down at the harbour and read our books for a while until it was time to go.
The train ride was, other than being full of high school students, uneventful and fairly fast. We got to Genoa and despite having a little map to the car hire shop, couldn’t figure out which way to go from the train station. Fortunately, my very little amount of Italian was just enough to ask a bus driver who was on a break, and even more amazing that than, to understand (sort of) what he meant – the international language of pointing saved the day I think.
Our hire car turned out to be a Lancia Muso which we’ve named “Francesca” (we have a tradition of naming all of our hire cars – our first and still favourite was a Fiat Stilo named “Florianne”, named after the girl at the Quick Burger at the Dijon train station that served us our lunch just before we picked up that hire car. Our sat-nav is called Tracy). Despite driving on the wrong side of the road, and bizarre Italian traffic (how do those scooter drivers not all die?), we made it to the seemingly endless series of tunnels leading up in to the mountains and away from the Mediterranean.
As usual, our hire car was slightly underpowered for hills, and while I managed to keep to 120km/hr, the extra 10km/hr to hit the Autostrada speed limit seemed a bridge too far for poor Francesca. The tunnels did get a bit tiring after a while – sunglasses on, sunglasses off, sunglasses on...and so on and so on. Even Tracy the satnav got tired of it and kept dropping the satellite signal.
We finally made it to the outskirts of Asti and had a major decision to make – trust in Tracy, who didn’t really know where Villa Sampaguita was, or rely on the instructions Jamie had gotten from Google Maps, which has had a history of being vastly wrong for us in the past. As Google at least had an idea of where we were supposed to be, we went with that, which turned out to be a good thing, as Tracy was trying to point us in entirely the wrong direction. After a long drive up possibly the narrowest road in all of Italy, we found it.
Rina came out to meet us and showed us to our room. They were in the middle of a business meeting, so we were left to our own devices. We quickly decided that a run into Asti to pick up a bottle of wine for the evening and dinner was in order.
Parking turned out to be a bit of a mission – the first lot we tried was full as full can be, and after circling for a bit, we thought that we’d try one a bit further out of centre. We were in luck – as we pulled in, someone was pulling out. €2 later we were set for the evening.
The B&B had a list of recommended local restaurants, and Osteria Tacabanda was the one we picked (it seemed easiest to find. As we sat down, we noticed that our waiter appeared to have Down’s Syndrome. Not an issue at all, but a bit unusual. It turns out that Tacabanda is part of a school for people with disabilities where they can learn to work in a restaurant/hotel and gain some independence – almost all of the staff, including the kitchen staff, have a disability of some sort.
We were impressed with the mission of the school, and even more impressed with the quality of the food. I started with a pepper timbale with a bagna caoda (a garlic and anchovy sauce) which was delicious, and Jamie had a lovely little package of cheese and white truffle wrapped in a savoy cabbage – completely delicious. For mains, I went with the roasted rabbit with stuffing, and Jamie had pasta with a parmesan and truffle gelato in top – mine was good, but Jamie’s was fantastic, despite the gelato making the pasta go cold (possibly a bit too clever for its own good).
By the time we finished dinner, we were both absolutely stuffed. We rolled back to the car (Jamie more so than me – as I had to drive, I only had one glass of the barbera that the waiter recommended).
We found our way back to the B&B with surprisingly little drama given the darkness and the tiny road, and have cracked a fresh bottle of wine and are currently sitting on our little balcony, looking at the Piedmontese stars and listening to crickets. Not the sound of the Mediterranean surf, but it’ll do.
We rolled our suitcase down to our little cafe for breakfast and had a leisurely cappuccino and pastry – we didn’t have to be at the train until noon so had a bit of time to kill. We spent about as much time as we could nursing our coffees before deciding to sit on the seats down at the harbour and read our books for a while until it was time to go.
The train ride was, other than being full of high school students, uneventful and fairly fast. We got to Genoa and despite having a little map to the car hire shop, couldn’t figure out which way to go from the train station. Fortunately, my very little amount of Italian was just enough to ask a bus driver who was on a break, and even more amazing that than, to understand (sort of) what he meant – the international language of pointing saved the day I think.
Our hire car turned out to be a Lancia Muso which we’ve named “Francesca” (we have a tradition of naming all of our hire cars – our first and still favourite was a Fiat Stilo named “Florianne”, named after the girl at the Quick Burger at the Dijon train station that served us our lunch just before we picked up that hire car. Our sat-nav is called Tracy). Despite driving on the wrong side of the road, and bizarre Italian traffic (how do those scooter drivers not all die?), we made it to the seemingly endless series of tunnels leading up in to the mountains and away from the Mediterranean.
As usual, our hire car was slightly underpowered for hills, and while I managed to keep to 120km/hr, the extra 10km/hr to hit the Autostrada speed limit seemed a bridge too far for poor Francesca. The tunnels did get a bit tiring after a while – sunglasses on, sunglasses off, sunglasses on...and so on and so on. Even Tracy the satnav got tired of it and kept dropping the satellite signal.
We finally made it to the outskirts of Asti and had a major decision to make – trust in Tracy, who didn’t really know where Villa Sampaguita was, or rely on the instructions Jamie had gotten from Google Maps, which has had a history of being vastly wrong for us in the past. As Google at least had an idea of where we were supposed to be, we went with that, which turned out to be a good thing, as Tracy was trying to point us in entirely the wrong direction. After a long drive up possibly the narrowest road in all of Italy, we found it.
Rina came out to meet us and showed us to our room. They were in the middle of a business meeting, so we were left to our own devices. We quickly decided that a run into Asti to pick up a bottle of wine for the evening and dinner was in order.
Parking turned out to be a bit of a mission – the first lot we tried was full as full can be, and after circling for a bit, we thought that we’d try one a bit further out of centre. We were in luck – as we pulled in, someone was pulling out. €2 later we were set for the evening.
The B&B had a list of recommended local restaurants, and Osteria Tacabanda was the one we picked (it seemed easiest to find. As we sat down, we noticed that our waiter appeared to have Down’s Syndrome. Not an issue at all, but a bit unusual. It turns out that Tacabanda is part of a school for people with disabilities where they can learn to work in a restaurant/hotel and gain some independence – almost all of the staff, including the kitchen staff, have a disability of some sort.
We were impressed with the mission of the school, and even more impressed with the quality of the food. I started with a pepper timbale with a bagna caoda (a garlic and anchovy sauce) which was delicious, and Jamie had a lovely little package of cheese and white truffle wrapped in a savoy cabbage – completely delicious. For mains, I went with the roasted rabbit with stuffing, and Jamie had pasta with a parmesan and truffle gelato in top – mine was good, but Jamie’s was fantastic, despite the gelato making the pasta go cold (possibly a bit too clever for its own good).
By the time we finished dinner, we were both absolutely stuffed. We rolled back to the car (Jamie more so than me – as I had to drive, I only had one glass of the barbera that the waiter recommended).
We found our way back to the B&B with surprisingly little drama given the darkness and the tiny road, and have cracked a fresh bottle of wine and are currently sitting on our little balcony, looking at the Piedmontese stars and listening to crickets. Not the sound of the Mediterranean surf, but it’ll do.
Wednesday, 2 June 2010
Day Five – Yes, but where is OUR yacht?
Day Five – Yes, but where is OUR yacht?
Jamie managed to sleep in today, sort of. We rolled out of bed at almost 9am, me with a significantly fuzzy head. Apparently I’d had more to drink last night that I realized and couldn’t really remember coming home, writing the trip report, or going to bed. Good times, until the hangover kicked in.
Our mission for the day was to visit the town of Santa Margherita Ligure, a little way up the coast from the Cinque Terre, near Portofino. We stopped at the train station to find out when the trains ran before getting breakfast – as it turned out, we had about 5 minutes before the next train to Riomaggiore; from Riomaggiore we could catch another train to Santa Margherita and be there before noon. We rushed over to the platform, caught the train, and made it to Riomaggiore.
It turns out that Riomaggiore is a very busy little village in the morning, and everyone seems to congregate in the piazza shared by the train station, the tourist information office, and the start of the walking path to Manarola. After fighting through the massive and slow moving crowds, we staked out a little patch on the platform. In due course, our train arrived and we pushed on. All the tour groups in the world were already on the train so we had to stand until we got to Monterosso, where most of them got off. We found some seats at that point and had quite a nice trip the rest of the way.
We got off the train in Santa Margherita and made our way down the steps to the harbour front – yes, pretty much EVERYTHING in this part of Italy seems to be either up some stair, down some stairs, or both. We walked along the harbour front, looking at both the ocean view, the cute town itself, and all the yachts and sailboats moored in the place. Some of them where monsters (not quite Capri-style, but some of them were close) – we wondered which one was ours.
We walked pretty much as far as we could along the harbour before we started looking for a place to eat lunch. We were both craving pizza, however we couldn’t really see anything that had it on the menu. We checked out one really expensive place, and another that looked okay but was in an alley with no view, before settling on the uber-touristy bar on the waterfront that we found – so non-descript that I don’t even know the name, although it did have a large sign on the sign advertising their speciality of the house – sex on the beach. Classy, I know. Not our normal venue for lunch, but they did have pizza.
We sat in the bright and sunny dining room watching a few ducks swim around, a bunch of fish in the water, and a whole load of very expensive boats, while we enjoyed our pizza and wine. Not the best pizza in the world, but it had a nice view.
We walked back towards the train station along the beachfront, dipping our toes in the warm Mediterranean water. As with the Cinque Terre, it seems that the beaches in Santa Margherita are mostly rock and not so easy on my sensitive city-boy feet. After rinsing off, we started walking back up the hill to the train station, stopping for a quick gelato on the way. On the stairs back up to the train, I noticed a strange black/brown thing on my foot. On further examination, it appeared that I’d stepped in something black and tar-like, probably on the beach. It had become lodged between two of my toes, and despite a vigorous session with a gelato napkin, I couldn’t manage to shift all of it.
Disturbed and slightly disgusted, we got on the train and found a seat. We both managed to fall asleep on the ride back to Monterosso, which was quiet other than the few minutes of my frantically looking for the train tickets (I’m a creature of habit, however I’d accidently put them in the wrong pocket in my camera bag. Jamie was NOT impressed). We changed trains at Monterosso for the intra-Cinque train and got back to Manarola without even having the damn tickets checked!
We headed up to the balcony to finish off the remains of the wine from last night as well as the beer I’d conveniently put in the fridge the previous day. The sun was a bit hit and miss, large grey clouds looked like they were moving in. I kept having to put my shirt back on, then take it off again, over and over. The wine and beer made it less annoying.
At 6ish, we decided that despite it being very early for dinner in Italy, we were both hungry. We got ready and walked the long way down to the village, stopping briefly to dump the rather embarrassingly large collection of empty wine and beer bottles in the recycle bin at the end of the road. While we fully support recycling, putting the bin in the middle of the road where everyone in the village can see how much you’ve drunk is a bit off-putting.
We stopped in at our favourite of Manarola’s restaurants for dinner – Trattoria Il Porticciolo. We’d had such an excellent meal on our first night in town with Sam and Chelsea that we thought we’d give it another go. We weren’t disappointed. Jamie started with the Caprese salad just to be different, and I had stuffed squid. The salad was as you would expect, but the stuffed squid was amazing – it had a sort of thick ragu/cheese filling in a tomato sauce that was so tasty. The taste of the filling initially overpowered the taste of the squid, but as you chewed the squid came to the front – not rubbery or chewy at all. We followed that up with ravioli for Jamie and Trofie in pesto for me (trofie being a local type of pasta) – both excellent, but so much trofie!
Desert was gelato down at the seats overlooking the harbour – we were both sad about our last night in the Cinque Terre. After gelato, we went down the boat ramp and stood in the breaking waves for a little while, feeling the water of the Med wash over our feet one last time. Maudlin, I know, but it’s an amazing place.
We’ve ended our last evening in the Cinque Terre with a final bottle of wine on our balcony, writing this report and watching possibly the most beautiful sunset of all time – a break in the clouds bathed Corniglio on its hill with golden light. We’re sad to be leaving this place, but looking forward to our 5 day driving tour of Piedmont starting tomorrow.
Jamie managed to sleep in today, sort of. We rolled out of bed at almost 9am, me with a significantly fuzzy head. Apparently I’d had more to drink last night that I realized and couldn’t really remember coming home, writing the trip report, or going to bed. Good times, until the hangover kicked in.
Our mission for the day was to visit the town of Santa Margherita Ligure, a little way up the coast from the Cinque Terre, near Portofino. We stopped at the train station to find out when the trains ran before getting breakfast – as it turned out, we had about 5 minutes before the next train to Riomaggiore; from Riomaggiore we could catch another train to Santa Margherita and be there before noon. We rushed over to the platform, caught the train, and made it to Riomaggiore.
It turns out that Riomaggiore is a very busy little village in the morning, and everyone seems to congregate in the piazza shared by the train station, the tourist information office, and the start of the walking path to Manarola. After fighting through the massive and slow moving crowds, we staked out a little patch on the platform. In due course, our train arrived and we pushed on. All the tour groups in the world were already on the train so we had to stand until we got to Monterosso, where most of them got off. We found some seats at that point and had quite a nice trip the rest of the way.
We got off the train in Santa Margherita and made our way down the steps to the harbour front – yes, pretty much EVERYTHING in this part of Italy seems to be either up some stair, down some stairs, or both. We walked along the harbour front, looking at both the ocean view, the cute town itself, and all the yachts and sailboats moored in the place. Some of them where monsters (not quite Capri-style, but some of them were close) – we wondered which one was ours.
We walked pretty much as far as we could along the harbour before we started looking for a place to eat lunch. We were both craving pizza, however we couldn’t really see anything that had it on the menu. We checked out one really expensive place, and another that looked okay but was in an alley with no view, before settling on the uber-touristy bar on the waterfront that we found – so non-descript that I don’t even know the name, although it did have a large sign on the sign advertising their speciality of the house – sex on the beach. Classy, I know. Not our normal venue for lunch, but they did have pizza.
We sat in the bright and sunny dining room watching a few ducks swim around, a bunch of fish in the water, and a whole load of very expensive boats, while we enjoyed our pizza and wine. Not the best pizza in the world, but it had a nice view.
We walked back towards the train station along the beachfront, dipping our toes in the warm Mediterranean water. As with the Cinque Terre, it seems that the beaches in Santa Margherita are mostly rock and not so easy on my sensitive city-boy feet. After rinsing off, we started walking back up the hill to the train station, stopping for a quick gelato on the way. On the stairs back up to the train, I noticed a strange black/brown thing on my foot. On further examination, it appeared that I’d stepped in something black and tar-like, probably on the beach. It had become lodged between two of my toes, and despite a vigorous session with a gelato napkin, I couldn’t manage to shift all of it.
Disturbed and slightly disgusted, we got on the train and found a seat. We both managed to fall asleep on the ride back to Monterosso, which was quiet other than the few minutes of my frantically looking for the train tickets (I’m a creature of habit, however I’d accidently put them in the wrong pocket in my camera bag. Jamie was NOT impressed). We changed trains at Monterosso for the intra-Cinque train and got back to Manarola without even having the damn tickets checked!
We headed up to the balcony to finish off the remains of the wine from last night as well as the beer I’d conveniently put in the fridge the previous day. The sun was a bit hit and miss, large grey clouds looked like they were moving in. I kept having to put my shirt back on, then take it off again, over and over. The wine and beer made it less annoying.
At 6ish, we decided that despite it being very early for dinner in Italy, we were both hungry. We got ready and walked the long way down to the village, stopping briefly to dump the rather embarrassingly large collection of empty wine and beer bottles in the recycle bin at the end of the road. While we fully support recycling, putting the bin in the middle of the road where everyone in the village can see how much you’ve drunk is a bit off-putting.
We stopped in at our favourite of Manarola’s restaurants for dinner – Trattoria Il Porticciolo. We’d had such an excellent meal on our first night in town with Sam and Chelsea that we thought we’d give it another go. We weren’t disappointed. Jamie started with the Caprese salad just to be different, and I had stuffed squid. The salad was as you would expect, but the stuffed squid was amazing – it had a sort of thick ragu/cheese filling in a tomato sauce that was so tasty. The taste of the filling initially overpowered the taste of the squid, but as you chewed the squid came to the front – not rubbery or chewy at all. We followed that up with ravioli for Jamie and Trofie in pesto for me (trofie being a local type of pasta) – both excellent, but so much trofie!
Desert was gelato down at the seats overlooking the harbour – we were both sad about our last night in the Cinque Terre. After gelato, we went down the boat ramp and stood in the breaking waves for a little while, feeling the water of the Med wash over our feet one last time. Maudlin, I know, but it’s an amazing place.
We’ve ended our last evening in the Cinque Terre with a final bottle of wine on our balcony, writing this report and watching possibly the most beautiful sunset of all time – a break in the clouds bathed Corniglio on its hill with golden light. We’re sad to be leaving this place, but looking forward to our 5 day driving tour of Piedmont starting tomorrow.
Tuesday, 1 June 2010
Day Four - Sunburn anyone?
Day Four – Sunburn, Anyone?
For some reason, Jamie let me sleep in this morning. She was evidently awake at 8am, but let me sleep until 9:30 before she got bored watching the vista from the balcony. We got ready (well, I got ready) and we walked the long way into town. Our first stop was for a pair of those touristic beach mats made of hay that smell of the countryside and/or cheap seagrass carpets – we were getting ready for an Italian Riviera Beach Day.
After our new traditional breakfast of a cappuccino and apricot-jam-filled croissant at the place beside the place with the nice view of the harbour, we caught the train to Monterosso; the town with the nicest beach.
Jamie managed to get onto the train without getting stuck in the door and the train ride was uneventful. I’m not sure that there was much going in Monterosso other than the beach – I think it’s the only of the five villages with a mostly non-rocky village (not in the sweaty guy from Philly sense, although there very well may have been some sweaty guys from Philly there). We claimed a spot on the last bit of sand left (other than the pay beach), despite the construction going on 10 feet behind us.
Fortunately the Italian tradition of the afternoon extended lunch/siesta saved us, and soon after we sat down the workmen left for their lunch/naps. The beach, despite being somewhat pebbley, was amazing, with great views of both the ocean and along the waterfront to the village. The water, as is to be expected of the Mediterranean was warm and amazingly clean (as far as we could see at any rate).
Despite all of the SPF 25 we liberally applied, after a couple of dips in the sea and a few hours lounging on the beach, we were both feeling a bit toasty (okay, we are both the shade of bright red only people who have lived in the gloom and cloud cover of London for several years can attain). We retired to a bar just beside one of the private sections of the beach for refreshments, which may have included wine, just for something different. We also had a very tasty bowl of fresh sliced strawberries in lemon juice with sugar – can’t get much better than that, if I’m honest.
We spent a few hours trying to work out how we could afford to move to a place that had sunshine and the Mediterranean within easy reach while drinking our wine and eating our strawberries. Nothing confirmed, but several promising plans made (lottery winnings placing high on the list of likely contenders), we made our way back to the train station to catch the 4:07 back to Manarola.
Other than a very odd family in the seats beside us (the son nibbled on his mother’s ear, then she returned the favour, all while dad watched – creepy doesn’t even begin to describe it), the train ride was as expected. The grocery stores in town (there are only two) were closed until 5pm as they are every day, so we went back up to the flat for a glass of wine for Jamie and a bottle of Birra Morretti for me (I’m better at rationing the beverages). We enjoyed the afternoon sun for a bit. Having re-applied the sunscreen, before heading down into town for essential supplies at the grocery store and dinner at the Michelin recommended restaurant in town (Marina Piccola) for dinner
Dinner was very tasty – Jamie started with a classic tomato and mozzarella salad and I had the local anchovy in lemon and oil. I’m not normally a fish fan, especially super fishy tasting fish like anchovy, but this version is really tasty. For mains, Jamie had trofie (a type of local pasta) with artichoke and scampi, and I had cuttlefish with chick peas. Both were excellent, and the view of the setting sun over the Manarola harbour was incredible.
After dinner, we grabbed a cup of gelato each and sat on the benches above the harbour to enjoy our treat. I have to say, my pistachio was better than Jamie’s mint, although I suspect she might argue with that. Dessert having been consumed, we headed back to the hotel to write our day’s report and enjoy a final glass of wine before bed.
For some reason, Jamie let me sleep in this morning. She was evidently awake at 8am, but let me sleep until 9:30 before she got bored watching the vista from the balcony. We got ready (well, I got ready) and we walked the long way into town. Our first stop was for a pair of those touristic beach mats made of hay that smell of the countryside and/or cheap seagrass carpets – we were getting ready for an Italian Riviera Beach Day.
After our new traditional breakfast of a cappuccino and apricot-jam-filled croissant at the place beside the place with the nice view of the harbour, we caught the train to Monterosso; the town with the nicest beach.
Jamie managed to get onto the train without getting stuck in the door and the train ride was uneventful. I’m not sure that there was much going in Monterosso other than the beach – I think it’s the only of the five villages with a mostly non-rocky village (not in the sweaty guy from Philly sense, although there very well may have been some sweaty guys from Philly there). We claimed a spot on the last bit of sand left (other than the pay beach), despite the construction going on 10 feet behind us.
Fortunately the Italian tradition of the afternoon extended lunch/siesta saved us, and soon after we sat down the workmen left for their lunch/naps. The beach, despite being somewhat pebbley, was amazing, with great views of both the ocean and along the waterfront to the village. The water, as is to be expected of the Mediterranean was warm and amazingly clean (as far as we could see at any rate).
Despite all of the SPF 25 we liberally applied, after a couple of dips in the sea and a few hours lounging on the beach, we were both feeling a bit toasty (okay, we are both the shade of bright red only people who have lived in the gloom and cloud cover of London for several years can attain). We retired to a bar just beside one of the private sections of the beach for refreshments, which may have included wine, just for something different. We also had a very tasty bowl of fresh sliced strawberries in lemon juice with sugar – can’t get much better than that, if I’m honest.
We spent a few hours trying to work out how we could afford to move to a place that had sunshine and the Mediterranean within easy reach while drinking our wine and eating our strawberries. Nothing confirmed, but several promising plans made (lottery winnings placing high on the list of likely contenders), we made our way back to the train station to catch the 4:07 back to Manarola.
Other than a very odd family in the seats beside us (the son nibbled on his mother’s ear, then she returned the favour, all while dad watched – creepy doesn’t even begin to describe it), the train ride was as expected. The grocery stores in town (there are only two) were closed until 5pm as they are every day, so we went back up to the flat for a glass of wine for Jamie and a bottle of Birra Morretti for me (I’m better at rationing the beverages). We enjoyed the afternoon sun for a bit. Having re-applied the sunscreen, before heading down into town for essential supplies at the grocery store and dinner at the Michelin recommended restaurant in town (Marina Piccola) for dinner
Dinner was very tasty – Jamie started with a classic tomato and mozzarella salad and I had the local anchovy in lemon and oil. I’m not normally a fish fan, especially super fishy tasting fish like anchovy, but this version is really tasty. For mains, Jamie had trofie (a type of local pasta) with artichoke and scampi, and I had cuttlefish with chick peas. Both were excellent, and the view of the setting sun over the Manarola harbour was incredible.
After dinner, we grabbed a cup of gelato each and sat on the benches above the harbour to enjoy our treat. I have to say, my pistachio was better than Jamie’s mint, although I suspect she might argue with that. Dessert having been consumed, we headed back to the hotel to write our day’s report and enjoy a final glass of wine before bed.
A Vacation in Italy - Cinque Terre and Piedmont
Day One – Travelling and Wine
The alarm woke us up with its insistent beeping at the ungodly hour of 5am. We’d only gotten to bed at 12:30 the night before so weren’t particularly perky at that hour, especially with a full day of travel ahead of us.
It took us an hour to get ready, two hours to get to Stanstead airport to wait two hours for our flight. Two and a half hours after we took off (most of which I slept through) we landed in Genoa – oddly the runway of the Genoa airport is built right out over the sea, you can’t see land until the plane is a couple dozen feet above it, which is pretty low when it looks like it’s going to be a water landing.
From Genoa airport we caught the bus into the main part of town so that we could sit and wait for the train. We were lucky enough to sit in front of an older couple who didn’t stop complaining the entire ride – the instructions at the bus ticket machine weren’t clear enough (we bought our tickets without any problems), the instructions given by the bus driver weren’t clear (seemed okay to me), no one could understand when she spoke Italian to them (I speak a little Italian – enough to know that what she was speaking wasn’t it)...I’ve never come so close to actually punching someone to make them stop talking while on vacation.
We finally made it to Genoa Prinicpe train station with absolutely no violence perpetrated on anyone, which was quite an achievement as far as I was concerned. We had a horrid little lunch in the train station while we waited for our train (why is it that train stations always have the most dire cafes?). The train itself was somewhat uneventful – two hours winding along the Ligurian coast on our way to Manarola, the fourth of the five villages of the Cinque Terra.
The directions from the train station to our little hotel couldn’t have been simpler to follow – leave the train, go through a tunnel, turn right, then turn right again, walk to the last house before the sea. The room is smallish but nicely decorated with a full-sized bed, closet with mini fridge and safe, and a full bathroom (toilet, sink, full size shower, but no hot water as it turns out).
On our was to the hotel, we’d stopped at a little grocery store to pick up essential supplies – a couple bottles of wine. After dropping off our bags, we walked up the stairs to the little balcony overlooking the ocean and sat down for a quick drink. An hour (and a bottle of wine) later, we headed back into town to meet our friends Sam and Chelsea for dinner – oddly we’d discovered a few days before leaving that we’d both be in the same town at the same time.
We found them without too much bother (as the town is ridiculously small) and made reservations at one of the five restaurants for dinner later that evening. In the meantime, we went up to their room overlooking the town for a glass or two of wine while we watched the sunset.
After the wine, dinner was excellent. We’d heard that the food in the Cinque Terra wasn’t that good, but our first meal was excellent and relatively cheap. I had anchovies in lemon sauce (not fishy or salty at all – definitely not tinned anchovies) and Jamie had swordfish carpaccio – I’m not sure if swordfish is a local fish but it’s certainly on all the menus. We followed that by the mixed seafood grill for me and pesto lasagne for Jamie (pesto being a local speciality). Both were excellent – far better than expected. Unfortunately the four bottles of wine that the four of us shared on top of the bottle of wine we had before dinner went a bit to our heads, so after a long supper (we closed the place down), Jamie and I headed back up the hill for bed. Apparently we had another glass of wine on the balcony, however I don’t recall this at all – the evidence (open wine bottle, used glasses) though speaks for itself.
Day Two – Walking and Sunburn
We had to get up fairly early this morning – we hadn’t actually met anyone the previous day when we checked in as the owner of the hotel wasn’t available. Again the alarm went off far too early (although it was 8:15 this time, rather than 5am) and we were forced to get up against our will.
We met the lady who I think we were supposed to – it was a little hard to tell as she spoke almost no English and my Italian has really disappeared in the last 3 years. At any rate, she took our passport details and filled in the relevant paperwork.
We were a bit peckish at this point, and I was in dire need of a cup of coffee, so we headed into town to look for somewhere to have breakfast. We found a place just above the main harbour and had cappuccinos and pastries and wondered if the cloud cover would clear up.
After breakfast we quickly went down to the water to see how cold it was. It’s the Med, so I was surprised that it felt a bit cold. Oh well. We walked back up the hill and through the tunnel to the train station and the start of the Via del Amore walk to Riomaggiore, the next town from us. We bought our slightly expensive tickets which gave us three days access to the paths between the towns (€10 each – not too bad for 3 days I suppose) and headed off toward the horizon.
They say that hell is other people, and I’m pretty sure they were all on that path this morning. It was queue after queue after queue the whole way. I was ready to leap off the edge most of the walk over, with tour after tour going past (why do the insist on taking up the WHOLE path?) and large groups of elderly slow-walkers ahead of us.
We finally made it to Riomaggiore and found all the people that weren’t yet on the path standing around at the entrance to the path. Took us 5 minutes just to get through the horde, again without violence on my part, which was a major achievement
We took the long way round to the main part of town in an effort to avoid the crowd (and we didn’t see the shortcut to be honest). We got into the main part of town and relatively quickly found a bank machine (the one in Manarola was broken and were had no cash). We got some money and walked down to the harbour. Not that much going on down there, and we were getting hungry, so after sitting on a rock for a bit watching the water (and some young people across the harbour mix champagne and orange juice in plastic cups) we went back up to the Co Op grocery store to buy a picnic lunch.
I spent some time throwing some peaches around (okay, so I dropped them) and buying various implement of lunch including water and orange juice (we’re so healthy). We then went to a take away pizza place and bought some pizza made on focaccia bread and walked to the rocky beach just past Riomaggiore. Lunch was fantastic, and the peach was possibly the best piece of fruit I’ve ever eaten – it tasted like actual sunshine, despite the soft bit on one side from where I’d dropped it.
After lunch we felt that it was time to head back to Manarola, but were not looking forward to the walk back with all the people. It turned out that the big crowd was only there for the morning – there were very few people out by the afternoon. It hardly took us any time to get back to the hotel and settle in for an afternoon of reading on the balcony in the sun, drinking wine and relaxing.
A few hours and a sunburn later, we went back into town to have dinner at a restaurant recommended by Sam and Chelsea the previous night. Not as good as dinner the evening before, but still not bad. Dinner was followed by a few minutes getting drenched in the surf, then a bottle of wine at the little local bar, with live guitar and an owner with a predilection for singing in Italian – a classic end to a classic day.
Day Three – Walking, Walking, Walking
Jamie decided that despite our talk of having a Monday morning lie-in, that 8:30am would be a good time to get up. Something about not being tired anymore and unable to sleep...I dunno, I was in the middle of a very odd yet intriguing dream involving a deserted house, neoprene knee braces, and ill-fitting baseball caps.
We hadn’t been overly impressed with our €5 per person breakfast the previous day so decided after getting a move-on that we’d try something new. €6 total at the new place next door to the expensive place got us a cappuccino each and a better croissant – this one with apricot jam in, as is the Italian style.
After breakfast, Jamie forced me onto the trail towards Corniglia, the next village along in the chain of five villages. We immediately got lost, as we followed the signs someone had posted with little arrows pointing to what turned out to be the high road/red route, rather than the much easier/lower blue route. It didn’t take us long hiking up into the mountains to realize our mistake and head back down to the lazy route – to be fair, both of us were wearing our flip-flops and definitely weren’t prepared for full-on mountaineering.
The hike turned out to be more difficult than the one between Manarola and Riomaggiore, which was a full-paved and bar-enhanced stroll by contrast. The Manarola-Corniglia path was much less paved and didn’t include a bar at all, a major disappointment as we hadn’t thought to pack water or wine for the trip and developed a massive thirst on the way.
After finding the correct path, we reached the train station at Corniglia without much drama and were presented with a moral dilemma – wait for the lazy touristic bus to take us up the hill into the town, or brave the 360-odd stairs up. Jamie, being the patient fan of waiting for things, including public transit like buses, insisted that we take the stairs. It was a long way up. A very long way.
It turned out that Corniglia, after all those stairs, wasn’t actually all that special. We checked out the views from Piazza Santa Margharita and from the tower at the top of the village before stopping for a slice of pizza (in the Cinque Terra, they make pizza on focaccia bread – it tastes even better than it sounds, if such a thing is even possible) and sat down to wait for the bus back down to the train station. It took a long time, so long that we decided not to wait, and walked back down the stairs.
We bought our tickets for the train, validated them, and rushed over to the appropriate platform for the train over to Vernazza, the second village on our tour for the day. It was at this point that we checked the train schedule. For reasons that remain unexplained, the train schedule in the Cinque Terre is a bit erratic. There are times during the day when there is a train every 10 minutes or so, and other times when there is an hour or two gap between them. Guess which we managed to get?
An hour of patiently sitting later, we caught the train to Vernazza. Three minutes later, we were there. Our hour of waiting apparently saved us two hours of major off-pavement mountain hiking, not appropriate for sandals and lazy people. I think it was worth it, and not just because I had an ice cream while I was waiting.
It seems that all of the people that were annoying on the path to Riomaggiore the previous day had decided to make their way to Vernazza. It was the biggest and most touristy of the four villages we’d visited and we weren’t immediately impressed, although to be fair I think the villages are at their best in the evenings when the tours and large groups of Italian students go home. We walked through town towards the harbour, noticing the end of the walking path from Corniglia on our way...poor sods who’d decided to walk it.
There had been rain over night the previous night and the waves had drastically increased in size over the previous day – there wasn’t much swimming going on in the protected beach area, and quite a bit of the harbour was blocked off by red ropes and massive waves.
We found a restaurant right on the waterfront and had a tasty lunch of bruschetta and pizza and possibly some wine, just for something different. We had a nice chat to some Americans who were sitting at the table beside us, and we all agreed that the local yokels who chose to disregard all the red barriers and jump off the end of the jetty into the waves were probably idiots. Pretty much everybody who saw them do it stood up in horror, and one tourist guy ran to try to save them (he had the look of a professional lifeguard about him). They stayed in the water for about 10 minutes, then popped back out onto the jetty like the penguins did in that movie about penguins. I got into the act as well, sitting as close as I could to the breaking waves without actually putting my life in much actual danger. I’m a dare devil, I know – “carefully considered risk taking” is my middle name (my parents thought Danger was too cliché for a middle name).
Lunch and adrenaline-rush had both been checked off our list of things to do for the afternoon. All that was left for Vernazza was a trip up the bloody mountain to take some more pictures. The recent month of torrential rains meant that the trail from Vernazza to Monterosso was closed, but this being Italy nothing prevented us from walking quite a way up it to get our shot – the things we do for our photography.
Our train timing was only slight better on the way home – we managed to get to the station, buy tickets, validate them, and rush onto the train, sort of. I made it on without a problem, but Jamie got tangled up in a group of elderly Americans who were having a very loud discussion questioning if they were on platform One right under the sign indicating that they were on platform one, and more crucially for Jamie, right in front of the door to the train. It closed while Jamie was about half-way through getting on. This was not good. She managed to squeeze through with only a large black mark on her arm which I’m sure will become a bruise and a squished camera bag (fortunately the camera wasn’t in the bag).
The train back to Manarola was definitely the way to go, rather than the death march we would have faced had we chosen to walk it. We stopped back at the room for some quality time on the balcony with a bottle of wine and a fresh application of suntan lotion. It was decided that there are few ways to spend an afternoon/early evening that come even close to comparing to the sheer awesomeness of wine, sun, loungy-style deck chairs, and wine.
Dinner was up the hill at Dal Billy (I think Billy is a local type of lobster, but I could be making that up – have I mentioned the wine?). We’d heard great things about this restaurant and had booked our table on Saturday night to make sure we could get a spot outside. We were seated quickly and the waiter recommended the mixed seafood platter to start as a sharing plate. It was excellent and we were excited about the main dish based on the quality of the starter. Unfortunately the shared pasta with crab didn’t live up to expectation. By the time we got through cracking all the bits of crab and getting the meat out, the pasta had gone cold. Beyond that, they had cracked a fair bit of crab before serving it and we both spent most of the main course picking little bits of crab shell out of our mouths. Not the most enjoyable main course we’d ever had.
Dinner finished, we walked back down the hill for a nightcap of wine on the balcony. We were both tired, but very relaxed and happy with the day – two villages, a relatively strenuous hike, an ice cream, some wine, some carefully considered danger...what more could one ask for?
The alarm woke us up with its insistent beeping at the ungodly hour of 5am. We’d only gotten to bed at 12:30 the night before so weren’t particularly perky at that hour, especially with a full day of travel ahead of us.
It took us an hour to get ready, two hours to get to Stanstead airport to wait two hours for our flight. Two and a half hours after we took off (most of which I slept through) we landed in Genoa – oddly the runway of the Genoa airport is built right out over the sea, you can’t see land until the plane is a couple dozen feet above it, which is pretty low when it looks like it’s going to be a water landing.
From Genoa airport we caught the bus into the main part of town so that we could sit and wait for the train. We were lucky enough to sit in front of an older couple who didn’t stop complaining the entire ride – the instructions at the bus ticket machine weren’t clear enough (we bought our tickets without any problems), the instructions given by the bus driver weren’t clear (seemed okay to me), no one could understand when she spoke Italian to them (I speak a little Italian – enough to know that what she was speaking wasn’t it)...I’ve never come so close to actually punching someone to make them stop talking while on vacation.
We finally made it to Genoa Prinicpe train station with absolutely no violence perpetrated on anyone, which was quite an achievement as far as I was concerned. We had a horrid little lunch in the train station while we waited for our train (why is it that train stations always have the most dire cafes?). The train itself was somewhat uneventful – two hours winding along the Ligurian coast on our way to Manarola, the fourth of the five villages of the Cinque Terra.
The directions from the train station to our little hotel couldn’t have been simpler to follow – leave the train, go through a tunnel, turn right, then turn right again, walk to the last house before the sea. The room is smallish but nicely decorated with a full-sized bed, closet with mini fridge and safe, and a full bathroom (toilet, sink, full size shower, but no hot water as it turns out).
On our was to the hotel, we’d stopped at a little grocery store to pick up essential supplies – a couple bottles of wine. After dropping off our bags, we walked up the stairs to the little balcony overlooking the ocean and sat down for a quick drink. An hour (and a bottle of wine) later, we headed back into town to meet our friends Sam and Chelsea for dinner – oddly we’d discovered a few days before leaving that we’d both be in the same town at the same time.
We found them without too much bother (as the town is ridiculously small) and made reservations at one of the five restaurants for dinner later that evening. In the meantime, we went up to their room overlooking the town for a glass or two of wine while we watched the sunset.
After the wine, dinner was excellent. We’d heard that the food in the Cinque Terra wasn’t that good, but our first meal was excellent and relatively cheap. I had anchovies in lemon sauce (not fishy or salty at all – definitely not tinned anchovies) and Jamie had swordfish carpaccio – I’m not sure if swordfish is a local fish but it’s certainly on all the menus. We followed that by the mixed seafood grill for me and pesto lasagne for Jamie (pesto being a local speciality). Both were excellent – far better than expected. Unfortunately the four bottles of wine that the four of us shared on top of the bottle of wine we had before dinner went a bit to our heads, so after a long supper (we closed the place down), Jamie and I headed back up the hill for bed. Apparently we had another glass of wine on the balcony, however I don’t recall this at all – the evidence (open wine bottle, used glasses) though speaks for itself.
Day Two – Walking and Sunburn
We had to get up fairly early this morning – we hadn’t actually met anyone the previous day when we checked in as the owner of the hotel wasn’t available. Again the alarm went off far too early (although it was 8:15 this time, rather than 5am) and we were forced to get up against our will.
We met the lady who I think we were supposed to – it was a little hard to tell as she spoke almost no English and my Italian has really disappeared in the last 3 years. At any rate, she took our passport details and filled in the relevant paperwork.
We were a bit peckish at this point, and I was in dire need of a cup of coffee, so we headed into town to look for somewhere to have breakfast. We found a place just above the main harbour and had cappuccinos and pastries and wondered if the cloud cover would clear up.
After breakfast we quickly went down to the water to see how cold it was. It’s the Med, so I was surprised that it felt a bit cold. Oh well. We walked back up the hill and through the tunnel to the train station and the start of the Via del Amore walk to Riomaggiore, the next town from us. We bought our slightly expensive tickets which gave us three days access to the paths between the towns (€10 each – not too bad for 3 days I suppose) and headed off toward the horizon.
They say that hell is other people, and I’m pretty sure they were all on that path this morning. It was queue after queue after queue the whole way. I was ready to leap off the edge most of the walk over, with tour after tour going past (why do the insist on taking up the WHOLE path?) and large groups of elderly slow-walkers ahead of us.
We finally made it to Riomaggiore and found all the people that weren’t yet on the path standing around at the entrance to the path. Took us 5 minutes just to get through the horde, again without violence on my part, which was a major achievement
We took the long way round to the main part of town in an effort to avoid the crowd (and we didn’t see the shortcut to be honest). We got into the main part of town and relatively quickly found a bank machine (the one in Manarola was broken and were had no cash). We got some money and walked down to the harbour. Not that much going on down there, and we were getting hungry, so after sitting on a rock for a bit watching the water (and some young people across the harbour mix champagne and orange juice in plastic cups) we went back up to the Co Op grocery store to buy a picnic lunch.
I spent some time throwing some peaches around (okay, so I dropped them) and buying various implement of lunch including water and orange juice (we’re so healthy). We then went to a take away pizza place and bought some pizza made on focaccia bread and walked to the rocky beach just past Riomaggiore. Lunch was fantastic, and the peach was possibly the best piece of fruit I’ve ever eaten – it tasted like actual sunshine, despite the soft bit on one side from where I’d dropped it.
After lunch we felt that it was time to head back to Manarola, but were not looking forward to the walk back with all the people. It turned out that the big crowd was only there for the morning – there were very few people out by the afternoon. It hardly took us any time to get back to the hotel and settle in for an afternoon of reading on the balcony in the sun, drinking wine and relaxing.
A few hours and a sunburn later, we went back into town to have dinner at a restaurant recommended by Sam and Chelsea the previous night. Not as good as dinner the evening before, but still not bad. Dinner was followed by a few minutes getting drenched in the surf, then a bottle of wine at the little local bar, with live guitar and an owner with a predilection for singing in Italian – a classic end to a classic day.
Day Three – Walking, Walking, Walking
Jamie decided that despite our talk of having a Monday morning lie-in, that 8:30am would be a good time to get up. Something about not being tired anymore and unable to sleep...I dunno, I was in the middle of a very odd yet intriguing dream involving a deserted house, neoprene knee braces, and ill-fitting baseball caps.
We hadn’t been overly impressed with our €5 per person breakfast the previous day so decided after getting a move-on that we’d try something new. €6 total at the new place next door to the expensive place got us a cappuccino each and a better croissant – this one with apricot jam in, as is the Italian style.
After breakfast, Jamie forced me onto the trail towards Corniglia, the next village along in the chain of five villages. We immediately got lost, as we followed the signs someone had posted with little arrows pointing to what turned out to be the high road/red route, rather than the much easier/lower blue route. It didn’t take us long hiking up into the mountains to realize our mistake and head back down to the lazy route – to be fair, both of us were wearing our flip-flops and definitely weren’t prepared for full-on mountaineering.
The hike turned out to be more difficult than the one between Manarola and Riomaggiore, which was a full-paved and bar-enhanced stroll by contrast. The Manarola-Corniglia path was much less paved and didn’t include a bar at all, a major disappointment as we hadn’t thought to pack water or wine for the trip and developed a massive thirst on the way.
After finding the correct path, we reached the train station at Corniglia without much drama and were presented with a moral dilemma – wait for the lazy touristic bus to take us up the hill into the town, or brave the 360-odd stairs up. Jamie, being the patient fan of waiting for things, including public transit like buses, insisted that we take the stairs. It was a long way up. A very long way.
It turned out that Corniglia, after all those stairs, wasn’t actually all that special. We checked out the views from Piazza Santa Margharita and from the tower at the top of the village before stopping for a slice of pizza (in the Cinque Terra, they make pizza on focaccia bread – it tastes even better than it sounds, if such a thing is even possible) and sat down to wait for the bus back down to the train station. It took a long time, so long that we decided not to wait, and walked back down the stairs.
We bought our tickets for the train, validated them, and rushed over to the appropriate platform for the train over to Vernazza, the second village on our tour for the day. It was at this point that we checked the train schedule. For reasons that remain unexplained, the train schedule in the Cinque Terre is a bit erratic. There are times during the day when there is a train every 10 minutes or so, and other times when there is an hour or two gap between them. Guess which we managed to get?
An hour of patiently sitting later, we caught the train to Vernazza. Three minutes later, we were there. Our hour of waiting apparently saved us two hours of major off-pavement mountain hiking, not appropriate for sandals and lazy people. I think it was worth it, and not just because I had an ice cream while I was waiting.
It seems that all of the people that were annoying on the path to Riomaggiore the previous day had decided to make their way to Vernazza. It was the biggest and most touristy of the four villages we’d visited and we weren’t immediately impressed, although to be fair I think the villages are at their best in the evenings when the tours and large groups of Italian students go home. We walked through town towards the harbour, noticing the end of the walking path from Corniglia on our way...poor sods who’d decided to walk it.
There had been rain over night the previous night and the waves had drastically increased in size over the previous day – there wasn’t much swimming going on in the protected beach area, and quite a bit of the harbour was blocked off by red ropes and massive waves.
We found a restaurant right on the waterfront and had a tasty lunch of bruschetta and pizza and possibly some wine, just for something different. We had a nice chat to some Americans who were sitting at the table beside us, and we all agreed that the local yokels who chose to disregard all the red barriers and jump off the end of the jetty into the waves were probably idiots. Pretty much everybody who saw them do it stood up in horror, and one tourist guy ran to try to save them (he had the look of a professional lifeguard about him). They stayed in the water for about 10 minutes, then popped back out onto the jetty like the penguins did in that movie about penguins. I got into the act as well, sitting as close as I could to the breaking waves without actually putting my life in much actual danger. I’m a dare devil, I know – “carefully considered risk taking” is my middle name (my parents thought Danger was too cliché for a middle name).
Lunch and adrenaline-rush had both been checked off our list of things to do for the afternoon. All that was left for Vernazza was a trip up the bloody mountain to take some more pictures. The recent month of torrential rains meant that the trail from Vernazza to Monterosso was closed, but this being Italy nothing prevented us from walking quite a way up it to get our shot – the things we do for our photography.
Our train timing was only slight better on the way home – we managed to get to the station, buy tickets, validate them, and rush onto the train, sort of. I made it on without a problem, but Jamie got tangled up in a group of elderly Americans who were having a very loud discussion questioning if they were on platform One right under the sign indicating that they were on platform one, and more crucially for Jamie, right in front of the door to the train. It closed while Jamie was about half-way through getting on. This was not good. She managed to squeeze through with only a large black mark on her arm which I’m sure will become a bruise and a squished camera bag (fortunately the camera wasn’t in the bag).
The train back to Manarola was definitely the way to go, rather than the death march we would have faced had we chosen to walk it. We stopped back at the room for some quality time on the balcony with a bottle of wine and a fresh application of suntan lotion. It was decided that there are few ways to spend an afternoon/early evening that come even close to comparing to the sheer awesomeness of wine, sun, loungy-style deck chairs, and wine.
Dinner was up the hill at Dal Billy (I think Billy is a local type of lobster, but I could be making that up – have I mentioned the wine?). We’d heard great things about this restaurant and had booked our table on Saturday night to make sure we could get a spot outside. We were seated quickly and the waiter recommended the mixed seafood platter to start as a sharing plate. It was excellent and we were excited about the main dish based on the quality of the starter. Unfortunately the shared pasta with crab didn’t live up to expectation. By the time we got through cracking all the bits of crab and getting the meat out, the pasta had gone cold. Beyond that, they had cracked a fair bit of crab before serving it and we both spent most of the main course picking little bits of crab shell out of our mouths. Not the most enjoyable main course we’d ever had.
Dinner finished, we walked back down the hill for a nightcap of wine on the balcony. We were both tired, but very relaxed and happy with the day – two villages, a relatively strenuous hike, an ice cream, some wine, some carefully considered danger...what more could one ask for?
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