Cinque Terre part 2
Upon arrival, and repeatedly thereafter, Alfeo, our self-appointed Vernazzan god-father, told me, "Do NOT take the lady on the trail to Monterosso. It is MUCH too dangerous!" So of course we did the walk as soon as we'd moved to our new place atop Anna Maria's house.
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toward Monterosso |
We were greatly relieved when we moved to our tiny aerie up two narrow circular stairways from Anna-Maria's front door. The weather was beginning to show autumn's claws, though, and we knew we should seize the first reasonable day for the second major walk in the Cinque Terre repertoire: the trail to Monterosso. In expectation of that demanding effort, we went into serious training... |
In Vernazza, one prepares oneself for a major event by eating well, and this we did enthusiastically. We gratefully discovered the Vernazzan white wine -- no red is made here, but since outsiders insist on it, chianti is brought in and rebottled -- and grappa, but our favorite discovery was muscoli ripieni -- Ligurian for stuffed mussels. (NOT Italian, it turns out; cozze is Italian for mussels.) Yummy! Can't wait to try this at home.
Accommodation in Vernazza is rough, but the restaurants are well-organized and produce superb and consistent food, and we thoroughly enjoyed the distinctly regional version of Italian food. |
dinnertime sunset |
isolated house along the trail |
After breakfast at Franco's Blue Marlin, we threaded our way up the narrow alleys behind the church on Vernazza's sciuiu side to the trail to Monterosso. Abundantly along the trail at both ends, near the two settlements of Vernazza and Monterosso, the hillsides are intensively terraced. The two Italian words that describe the native vegetation around and above Vernazza, "maquis" and "garrigue" come painfully into my mind as we walk. |
Since humans have been living here, taking any wood that grew for building, cooking, and heating, replacing native flora with crops, terracing, excavating, what were a few thousand years ago pine covered slopes, nature has been subject to degradation for millennia.
The trails on either side of Vernazza are tough up down up down hikes across amazingly vertical country. It's easy to understand why the farmers whose plots are reduced by the width of the trail have narrowed the trail over the centuries to something negotiable by one small person carrying a basket of grapes. Horizontal land is precious. Who could anticipate the swarms of German tourists that would one day march along it?
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autumnal garden below the house |
Except for the lands still under cultivation -- a shrinking share, apparently, as factory vintners have decreased the profit in small vineyards and winemaking and urbanization sucks the young away -- the lands are described as slowly recovering -- "maquis" -- and beyond hope -- "garrigue". The gentler south- and west-facing slopes are intensively terraced right to the point where four foot walls create three feet of growing space. Ingenious rack-and-pinion monorail systems carry farmers, tools, and soil amendments up, and farmers, tools, and produce down. Patterns of healthy growth and negligent farming alternate, suggesting that plots are held by tradition, and that while some are being actively tended, others are left to wither, and, possibly, recover. There are many young children in the streets here, and local schools, but I suspect there's not much young blood coming out of school and choosing to work these precipitous terrace farms. There's no doubt that these hills, with their favorable climate, could support the residents here with an abundance of olives, grapes, and wine, alongside lemons, tomatoes, and kitchen garden crops that also thrive here, and foster a healthy environment, too. Awareness of the need to protect and encourage local self-sufficiency, and a sense that healthy nature is necessary for a healthy people, seem not to have dawned ...and the presence of the electrified railroad mainline may well mean that Vernazza and the other Cinque Terre towns will remain a dependent part of a larger sustainable bioregion come what may in terms of reliance on petroleum.
As we tramped up and down between towns, I reflected on the joys and costs of building on hilly sites like these -- I might like to build hilly next time, in a sort of return to my roots in the Oakland hills. Here, every rock not found on the site, every bag of cement, every coil of wire and length of pipe is carried in. Imagine the effect THAT would have on the size and economy of any house you might build!
Like Spain and to a lesser extent Portugal, Italy seems to have mastered the art of preserving old structures while incorporating the best technology. Old buildings have immense embodied energy and authority built into them, and so must be preserved, but time marches on, and plumbing fixtures aren't what they were three hundred years ago when most of these structures were erected. Gina's bathroom was a veritable palace (on a domestic scale, of course) -- a bidet, a slickly designed shower stall and shower head, a state-of-the-art low-flush toilet, and a glorious marble-topped lavatory with slickly designed chrome fixtures. Even out here away from town, an open upstairs window reveals a modern computer, and on the roof, a satellite dish -- the new European Community national flower?
Shutters protect every window that faces the sun, and are mindfully operated to regulate interior temperatures: closed in summer whenever the sun would penetrate into the living space, open with the windows open whenever shade and breeze coincide. Without exception, these are thick-walled, rock, stucco, and cement buildings, and most of them share a third or more of their uphill wall with the naked rock, and so thermal mass is very high. With careful regulation of insolation (incoming sunlight) and ventilation -- shutters and windows -- the need for air conditioning, about three times as expensive here as in the US, is eliminated.
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looking back at Vernazza's harbor |
Standing aside while groups of twenty to forty stalwart Germans tramped by, we had ample time to admire the ingenuity of the farmers and wall-builders as well as the weight of German tourism on this little segment of the Cinque Terre. The "tedeschi" (Ligurian pejorative for Germans) are a hard lot to like. Most of them seem incapable of walking without two lethal-looking walking sticks and a large camera, or without constantly gabbling loudly. Something about their language doesn't allow for short sentences or quiet delivery, and so we could hear them before we saw them, giving us plenty of time to find a wide spot in the trail and pull over to let the juggernaut steam past. |
It's easiest to get out of the way, not even the narrowest one-way path or the most obvious precedence of oncoming walkers keeps them from grimly bulling forward, intent on finishing as much of the hike as they can in one day. They bring their dogs, who must be constipated in Germany, because they crap prolifically on the narrow trail; the Germans think this is funny. In fairness, it must be noted that they are a polite mob, saying "Danke" when they pass us standing aside for them ... it doesn't to occur to them that in Italy "Grazie" might fit better.
These delays are not unwelcome. The scenery is spectacular, and it's good to take time to breathe, watch the light play on hills and ocean far below, and participate in how different this place is from home. |
trail and farmers' stair |
Azure Cove, Vernazza in the next cove |
bottle dump halfway along |
Halfway along from Vernazza to Monterosso, in the heart of spectacular scenery, there's another year-around stream and a small cluster of terraces and a single house. Like several of the little farmsteads we've seen along these trails, this one looked like it could easily be self-sufficient -- if one's desires were simple enough: potatoes, beans, limes, oranges, grapes, olives, chickens, several kinds of lettuce, tomatoes, brassicas, artichokes. This is generous land, and the trail is at once lifeline and interloper.
Sadly, here one also finds an old concrete cistern that has been designated by some passing bozo as the repository for plastic drink bottles -- as if they were too heavy to carry out! |
Along the trail, many microclimates prevail, and crops are at different stages, but all testify to the onset of autumn. The grapes are in and the leaves turning. The first rains have made the trail muddy in patches. Even the tourists are beginning to wane ...imagine it in high season! We were glad to be there at the end of the onslaught. | Autumn is in the air and on the grape leaves |
trail and stream share space |
one of many narrow passages |
After two hours, and a climb from sea-level to 165 meters and back down a couple of times, we came into Monterosso, which might as well be a German enclave -- German beer, German names and ads on the news kiosk containing exclusively German newspapers and products. It must also be noted that Monterosso is the first stop in the Cinque Terre on the road or railroad from Germany. Apparently the pattern is for the German tourists to drive to Monterosso, stay there, walk southeast along the trail to as many of the other towns as they can manage, then train back to Monterosso. This is a very equitable arrangement in our view, as Monterosso is by far the least interesting of the five towns, and this leaves the rest for the Italians and visitors of other nationalities.
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the beach at Monterosso |
Monterosso shares with Corniglia the distinction of being easily accessible by car, and so it is as car-ridden as any other average dirty little beach town. Here more than anywhere else I've ever been, there appears to be a careful sequestration of the tourist precincts, so that the actual village where the natives live, if there is one and there are any, is invisible to visitors (and, presumably, vice versa.) |
Shopkeepers make a supreme effort to include themselves with the rest of the Cinque Terre by advertising Cinque Terre products (especially red wine!) but the heart was torn out of Monterosso a long time ago.
We found delicious foccaccia and gelato, but discovered that "if you want to sit, they tax your seat"-- there are precious few benches or places to relax after the hard walk that don't belong to some entrepreneur. The same is true for Monterosso's beach -- a fine sandy strand it is (except for the part that's been paved over and fenced as a parking lot) that is almost wholly balkanized by purveyors of beach umbrellas and chairs. We ended up sitting in the sand on the communal fisherman's way from their boat-storage plaza to the sea. |
Monterosso's trademark "Gigante" |
Having quickly exhausted the touristic possibilities in Monterosso, we bought tickets and awaited the train that would carry us four kilometers back through the tunnel to Vernazza. We bought the same tickets in three towns during our stay, and paid a different amount each time. Conveniently, the price is not marked on the ticket, so the seller can charge whatever seems to suit his mood of the moment. This appears to be the general practise with Italian train tickets -- I may have been overcharged 10,000 lira ($5) in Genoa, judging by the price printed on the ticket. Or not; when I asked, I was greeted by a cascade of excited Italian explaining why that is the right amount, and must be paid.
Italian money is confusing because it has so many zeroes on it. It's delightful to see that Maria Montessori graces the commonest bill, the 1,000 lira note, worth about fifty cents. Confusingly, there is also a 1,000 lira coin that is only slightly larger than the 500 lira coin ...fortunately, transactions seldom involve such piddling amounts. Bills are also subtly graduated by size, so the 100,000 lira note is a bit larger than the 10,000, which is in turn larger than the 1,000. Undoubtedly for stylistic reasons, there are no demarcations between thousands -- of course, the Europeans use a point where we use a comma, and a comma where we use a decimal point -- but some form of break showing the magnitude of a bill would be helpful. I don't think this is done cynically by the designers, but there is no doubt in my mind that some practitioners of the tourist industry, apparently especially including train ticket sellers, take advantage of foreigners' confusion. As, of course, it is their right, and almost their duty, to do.
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Anna Maria's domain |
One of the delights of staying somewhere for a week is that one gets to know the people, the back streets, and the moods of the place. Prowling the sunny side, we found this perfect view back across the valley to our room, there just to the right of the striped awning. Anna Maria also operates the restaurant above the tower -- great stuffed mussels and sunsets! |
On our last full day in Vernazza, we caught a ride on the national park's minibus up to the Chapel to the Virgin at the top of the thirteen-shrine trail above town -- not so much for the shrine as for the walk back down the trail. But once there, we had to look in. The place felt isolated and abandoned despite its attached nunnery. Even in the dark, we could see the richness of the painting and feel the devotion of those who make the trek up here to worship. |
the chapel ceiling |
the Virgin's chapel above Vernazza |
the thirteenth shrine |
Vernazza and harbor from the cemetery |
Following the steep zigzag trail down across the brow of the steep hill above Vernazza, we got one last good sense of what makes this little town so special -- great beauty, tradition, self-sufficiency, peacefulness, and a strong need to cling by its finger- and toe-nails to the land that nurtures it. |
Vernazza's cemetery |
Vernazza's main street |
As the sun goes down on our last night in Vernazza, I notice that very few lights come on around town -- occupied windows, a modest spill or two from the bars along the main street, and just enough lighting along the stairways and lanes that serve as the town's streets so that navigation isn't dangerous. Compact fluorescents dominate this conservative lighting regime to the extent that an incandescent light is remarkable. The stars and moon are bright. If a global energy crunch ever comes, the Cinque Terre, partly relying on its ancient roots and habits and partly on its quickness to adopt efficient new ways, will do better than Caspar. Indeed, life here might be better, if somewhat more demanding, with half as many tourists. As I guessed, reading the guidebooks and history books, Caspar can learn more from the Cinque Terre than from almost anywhere else we've stayed.
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