The American Invasion, Part Four; Cinque Terre

On Wednesday, June 3rd, we woke up early as we had to be out of the room by 10am. That gave us plenty of time to explore the other three villages, but first, we had to get some breakfast. Since the town is such a major destination for American tourists, there was a little place catering to American breakfast tastes; eggs, bacon, toast, omelets, etc. I, however, opted for a nutella-stuffed crepe; nothing like dessert for breakfast! After that, we set out. The first stop was Corniglia, third town in the Cinque Terre. We skipped Manarola which we'd seen the previous day and arrived directly there by the train that links the five villages.

Here we are at the base of the humongous flight of stairs that we needed to ascend to get into the town proper

The forest of railings you can see on the switchback steps doesn't convey the true enormity of the stairs. Even the top portion visible in this picture wasn't the end of the staircase. If you look real hard, you can see Ryan waving back down at us near the upper left.

We decided Ryan should go up first and then take a picture of us from the top of the steps while we took a picture of him at the same time from the bottom. He went up the stairs while Alee and I waited, then after about five minutes we realized that we were the only two with cameras. DOH. So I made the trek up after him while Alee waited at the bottom.

A view of the mountains from partway up the stairs

From about two-thirds the way up. Alee is the little white blotch  near the base of the steps, on the right

The stairs were surrounded on either side by little terrace gardens

There was a cherry tree off to one side. Most people overlook it because they are laboring up the stairs, but I noticed it when I paused to wait for Alee and managed to grab a couple cherries. They were good!

Alee proudly standing next to the sign at the top of the stairs

Finally we reached the town proper. There were lots of little artsy shops and such. We just wandered around a bit

While standing around, we watched this scene unfold: Ice cream delivery truck vs tour bus on a one-lane street

Tour bus wins! The ice cream truck backed up to let it by. In retrospect we should have stolen some ice cream while they were immobilized playing chicken

Steep staircases everywhere you looked

Possibly the world's creepiest statue in a piazza in front of a church in Corniglia. Click to enlarge

Looking across the adjacent valley

More terraces

Ryan representing ASU

A steep climb from one piazza to the next

The second amazing soccer incident caught on film. About 0.0005 milliseconds after this photo was taken, the soccer ball sailed directly into the.... sensitive bits... of the poor little boy on the left. He's only, what, like five years old? So it didn't seem to do much damage. But the face and sound he made when it happened were priceless! If only I were videotaping it, I could have won the big prize in America's funniest home videos.

Clouds enveloping the upper ranges of the mountains

What a coastline!

Found someone to take our picture! Actually it was one of the many, many Americans there in Cinque Terre. We even managed to find some fellow Sun Devils!

This photo speaks for itself

Another one of the Cinque Terre's very many small, lovely balconies covered in greenery

Leaning out over the edge, looking down into the sea. Che bella!

Just me and my trusty backpack

Looking up the coast towards the next towns

That's the last town there, Monterosso. You can see some of the ferries in the water, which we would later take a voyage on

From Corniglia, the next stop was Vernazza. Another short train ride up the verdant mountainous coastline brought us to the little town that has a beautiful harbor, but not much of a beach. And some excellent gelato, as we would find.

A view of the town as we arrived. We didn't have any tourist literature to guide us, but I would guess that the tower on top of the hill was part of the defense against seaborn pirates, usually from North Africa, which plagued Italy several hundred years ago

The plain yet beautiful architecture of a simple seaside town. So different than anything back home!

Walking through Vernazza towards the shoreline. Notice Al's awesome sunburn from our day in the park

A little chapel/altar on the way down to the sea

Underneath a little bridge spanning a dry creek that leads to the blue waters of the Mediterranean

Awesome hole in the rock wall. Lands End, Italy style

Vernazza's harbor area

The colorful fishing boats lined up in the harbor

Al being silly

After all the walking we'd done that day, we were ready for something to refuel our spirits. We got something to eat and some gelato, and sat right down on the edge of the harbor enjoy. Mother nature had other ideas though, and shortly after we seated ourselves the skies opened up and it started to rain. We retreated to the cover of some umbrellas in the piazza, and waited for the deluge to halt. 

Managed to get all three of us in this shot!

Another view of the tower

All the quaint little towns were riddled with back alleys and staircases like this. Incredible

The harbor, from up on a hill

Vernazza was a nice little town, but our day was nowhere near finished yet, so we bid it adieu and moved on up the coast to the next town, Monterosso. It, unlike most of the other towns, has a real beach and thus is a bit of a mecca for those who want to catch some sun and some waves in the Cinque Terre. It was also the last stop for our adventure, but instead of taking the dingy ol' train back to our point of departure, we would have a scenic ferry ride that would bring us right back to where we started from (with some adventures along the way, of course).

The sandy beach of Monterosso, awaiting us as we exited the train station

Looking up the coastline from the opposite point of view, back towards Vernazza

Italian beaches; possibly the most organized institutions that exist in the country

A vibrant little casa right on the shoreline

Ah, the scenery

June isn't even the busy season for beaches

Walking up the seaside path, we found this WWII era German pillbox, guarding the coast for strategic vacation purposes

An old fortress on the edge of the cliffs

Unfortunately, at this point my camera battery decided to give up the ghost. At least it lasted all the way to the final town, and we didn't have much time left in the Cinque Terre anyways, so Alee's camera would have to suffice for the rest of the way. We continued up the hill past the fortress, then down into a bay that protected Monterossa's harbor.

Even though the Cineque Terre are in the far north of Italy, being right on the sea grants them the typical Mediterranean climate - including cactus. Hard to believe, but this part of Italy is farther north than NYC, Boston... even Syracuse!

Looking out from the harbor. We'd soon be on one of those ferries.

Cheese!

From the bluffs overlooking the harbor, we made our way down into town.

We wandered around for a little while, looking at the kitschy little shops lining the narrow medieval streets. We eventually came upon a group of onlookers staring at something in the middle of the street, as a huge dumptruck came to a halt just a few yards away. As we got closer, we could see there was an old (and likely suicidal) cat sleeping right smack dab in the middle of the road. Actually, ancient would probably be a better way to describe the mangy thing. 

Well the driver was reluctant to squish the poor thing in front of so many tourists, so he tooted his horn a few times but to no avail. The cat was ready to leave it's mortal coil behind, so it seemed. After a couple minutes of chuckling from the amused tourists, one bystander stepped forward and picked up the cat, planting it safely on the side of the road. The cat didn't bat one eyelash while being transplanted and went right on back to it's comatose state, more than likely upset that its attempt to leave this plane of existence was thwarted. We continued on a bit, but not for long as we had to return to catch the next ferry to the first town so we could get a train back home. While waiting for the ferry, we spent our time speculating on how exactly they were going to dock and load all these people onto the rather large boats from the tiny little harbor. True to form for Italy, the big ship just waltzed up to the dock, threw out a gangplank, and young and old alike filed on one by one as waves made the ship bob and weave. The ship would take us back past the four other towns, stopping to load and unload passengers at each one. We made sure to get some seats on the observation deck above, and we were not disappointed with the views on the way back to Riomaggiore.

Not a bad view while you eat

Livin' on the edge

That's a graveyard there. Not a bad way to pass eternity.

If you look deadcenter in the photo, you'll see the old man in the white shirt tending his garden on the edge of the cliff. People on the boat were waving to him and he was happy to wave back. He was also sporting a bushy gray beard, so we speculated this town was Santa's summer retreat.

A nice New Zealand couple beginning their retirement were seated in front of us on the boat, so we made them take our picture first then sing some songs from Flight of the Conchords. Ok, not the second part.

It's kind of hard to see in this photo, but the man in the couple seated at the front right of this picture looked EXACTLY like Ryan. So much so that we decided he was Ryan's future self, the lone survivor of a horrible accident on this boat who traveled back in time to stop the same accident from occurring, saving Alee, I, and everyone else aboard.

Finally back on terra firma, we headed to the railway station and waited for the next train to take us back home. We had a long wait, because, well, it's Italy. But we managed to entertain ourselves, as usual, and we even met a few Sun Devils sporting ASU shirts. Eventually our train showed up, and we were back on our long (four hour) ride home. Thankfully Ryan had his iPhone with him and a app which lets you play craps, so we were able to keep ourselves occupied while practicing for our next trip to Vegas. I also managed to get one final photo of the countryside out of my camera on the ride back:

We arrived back in Bologna pretty late, but pretty late is exactly when Italians go to dinner, so that's what we did. We had a pretty nice meal at a place recommended to me by a friend, seated out in a nice secluded piazza. I had been telling Ryan and Alee all week how few Americans there are in Bologna, so of course that evening we ended up being seated next to a group of about 12 of them. We chatted with them for just a minute, but it turns out they were on some kind of mission to Italy for some Baptist church. Luckily they didn't ask us if we needed to be saved, because I worked up such an appetite that day that nothing from this world OR the next could get between me and my next meal. I ate like a horse, we drank like fish, and had a very excellent evening. We ended up chatting with another couple sitting to the side of us. They were from Germany, touring Italy and here in Bologna to see some kind of opera. They were a few interesting characters to say the least, and we ended up running into them again a little while later on our stumble... err, walk, home. We headed home right after dinner, as we were understandably pooped and still had plans for more adventures tomorrow. But that is another post, of course! See you all here soon with some more photos and tales from Italy.