A Haphazard Adventure: Lacey&Graham: Cinque Terre, Italy pt. I

Cinque Terre, Italy pt. I

Thursday, May 7, 2015

As we left Milan Saturday morning at 11am, we couldn't help but sigh with relief. The most stressful part of our trip was over, surely! After all, we had experienced a protest, walked several miles out of the way, gotten 3 hours of sleep, missed our train, a whole slew of craziness for our first day in a new country. Graham had already voiced that he was most excited about our next destination, Cinque Terre, which is roughly translated to “five villages.” Over the course of the weekend, we planned to run between Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore, each famed for their colorful buildings jammed into a little coastal area.

While we were on the train, we got a little anxious when we realized we were going to have a 7 minute overlap to trade trains in a place called Geneva. We began to awkwardly communicate with a fellow trainmate, who was able to help us figure out where to go. We were exceptionally grateful that he would be able to tell us where to get off, so we decided to relax and enjoy the beautiful Italian scenery. To think, we actually were in Italy! As the time dwindled down, we were told where to get off, we ran to the right train stop, after taking a minute to figure out where we should be. This means a lot when there is only 7 minutes in the first place!

So on we jumped, when we got on, we realized that we were going to arrive much later than we had originally told the person we were staying with. I tried to send a text to inform him, but it never went through. (I did realize how my printed out train ticket, the one that we missed, did not say our midway train change, so I wondered if it ended up being for the best that we missed our train, because without the train change knowledge we would have gotten off at a wrong destination anyway. Meanwhile our new tickets visibly told us where and when to specifically get off: I still don't know if this is true.) By this point we just shrugged our shoulders and gazed out at the coast. Another youthful sprite began to chit chat with passable English. It was here that we finally felt that we explored what Italy was like for a citizen. He expressed his love for his country, his culture, the scenery, but said that the government and lack of jobs really was putting the country through the mill. From this moment on we paid close attention to how Italy presented itself to a tourist versus their reality.

Finally we managed to get to La Spezia, the main train hub for CT. As we approached the train attendant for a 2 day pass throughout all of the villages, I’d done my research and felt confident in asking. “Sorry, but tomorrow is a train strike- the trains probably won’t be working until 9 Sunday evening.”

Hold on, let me get this right. We had a 2 day trip planned for Cinque Terre, one of the most scenic places in all of the country. Our first day was cut in half (we arrived at 4, the evening sets at 5:30) due to missing the train and now we find out that the train system, the only way to train between the villages wouldn’t even be working. WHY, oh please, WHY must everything ruin my carefully- laid plans! As we ran our fingers through our hair, huffed and puffed angrily we wondered yet again what in the world caused us to come on that specific tumultuous week. Eventually we were told that the trains, might end up working for a time, but she just couldn’t be sure. We decided to just wing it and bought a one-way ticket to Vernazza.

As we approached the city, I was squealing with delight! Dubbed the most beautiful village, we had booked a tiny cottage, the only place in town, with spectacular views. We walked down the sloped street and everything was so incredibly cute. Each building was at least six stories tall, they were colored in pastels, while the remainder of Italy was only shades of beige.

Due to the Christmas season, as we walked along the strip there overhead were shooting star lights, just beginning to flicker on. We were anxiously ready to arrive at our place to drop off our luggage and visit everything before it closed down. So with the handwritten directions from the owner of the cottage we began to search.

As we found our “street” it was turned out to actually be a small alleyway on the left side of the tall buildings towards a cliff. We walked up the steps as it curved steadily upward, luckily we were already warned that there were several hundred steps so we knew in advance. We trudged on and pasted multiple apartments, meanwhile walked up the incline to the left. After a few hundred steps we reached the address I had printed out! We were so glad because it wasn’t too hard to find or too far up. My feet were also aching from walking upwards so much carrying wo bags and with shoes half a size too small We knocked on the door but no one answered. It was here that I realized this was quickly becoming a problem; we had told the owner we would be there at 9am and it was 4:30pm. More worrisome was that we would be completely lost when the sun set in an hour’s time. So I began to try in vain to call him, suddenly Graham found a pair of keys in the mailbox! Hallelujah. He jingled them in and out—nothing. So we began to worry just a little, as we walked up the staircase to the next apartment just to see if that was our stop.

Okay so picture this, 2 ignorant tourists lost in the country in Italy where we can’t find our place to stay, not even locals who speak English, there aren’t any other hotels in the area, the train is soon to stop working for 24 hours and the sun is setting. I prayed hard, guys.

So as I sat with 4 pieces of luggage as Graham kept walking to see if we could find our actual place. It is here that I am going to have difficulty explaining, you really need to physically be there to understand what I mean, so bear with me. Well as he looked, the stairs forked. Graham walked a piece up one side, came back down, wondered aloud if that could be he right place, and again we prayed. A great deal of time had passed, 30 minutes of so since getting there, the sun was dropping steadily.

Finally, after calling several times we received got in touch with the owner, who was kind of perturbed about the time, who told us that we were not even at the right place, plus he was on vacation in another country. (Of course, our luck could not be much worse at this point.) I was frustrated because that was the physical listed address he had given us. He told us that we needed to go up many more steps to find the right place and then the phone was disconnected

We decided to go up the side Graham had partially went up together in hopes of it being the right place. To explain these directions the steps went is very difficult. They went up to the left, did a 180 in the other direction, looped around a tower, had two flights going directly up and past the tower. The view was completely blocked from this point from below. All of a sudden we saw two young sprites walking out from a nearby hiking trail, I prayed for English speakers and called out, “Excuse me! Do you know where Andrea’s apartment is, can you please help us?”

The long haired one piped up. “Oh you’re the ones staying! I was supposed to help carry your luggage up for you, but you never came. You are almost there. Andrea’s apartment is up all of these stairs, when you pass a gate on the right that’s your place. Do you see the lamp? Put in your key for the gate. But I must run now, my train is coming. Sorry!” To which I nearly sobbed, “no, thank you so much!” And our own little miracle man ran down the hundreds of stairs to the train.

As we walked I noticed a restaurant, La Torre (The Tower), which was also owned by Andrea, and recalled reading online that we had to past that to get there. We perkily went up the remainder of the stairs, pasted a shire to the Virgin Mary (Catholics, but duh, we’re in Italy), and as we rounded a corner we did see a locked gate! Finally, we let out the breath we had been holding for about 45 minutes as the sun was hovering lower to the earth. Graham pulled out the keys we found at the first apartment we went to and mumbled how misleading finding those keys were when we originally found them. We finally managed to get in the gate, walked up one more flight of steps (meanwhile welts on my shoulder and blisters on my feet) and we saw our little teeny, adorable cottage. Probably measuring in at 12x12, it was basically just a queen size bed with a small bathroom. It couldn't have felt nicer than a stay at the Ritz Carlton at that moment. I was also surprised that the nearest neighbor to us was halfway down the cliff we had to climb, it was completely secluded.

We dumped our luggage and walked back to the terrace. WOW is all that I can say about the view- just WOW. The little colorful peninsula jutting out into the sapphire lapping water is something I hope to never forget.

We eased ourselves back down the stairs to do a bit of exploring as the sun set. The Christmas lights were in full effect, as we finally were able to relax into the little romantic town. We walked past warbling karaoke singers at a bar to visit the only open restaurant overlooking the wharf. We sat down and decided after a really rough day we were going to splurge on ourselves! We both ordered Fanta’s (8oz, yes 8, canned Fanta’s were 3 Euro’s a piece. We did not realize they would be canned without the chance to replace them for free.) Since Cinque Terre was known for being to location to create the infamous green sauce- Graham ordered a Pesto flavored pasta, while the remainder of the menu was seafood (not my forte) so I opted for the veal. We spent more on this one supper than we did on any entire day from the remainder of the trip! And I wish someone could have seen Graham’s face when his plate arrived with pasta rolled out like little maggots. Hilarious!

Afterwards we walked by the wharf, went up the main strip of town (which was maybe like 800 feet) and got information on possible trains for tomorrow, just to try our luck. Eventually we walked back up the hundreds of steps but as we left behind the last home (midway up) there were no more street lamps, this was a problem because several of the steps had chunks missing or would lop off for no reason, and even my phone had died at this point so we couldn't use the built- in flashlight. Finally we ended up using my camera, I would hold the picture as if to take a picture, we would use the red light that appeared for the use of the flash for guidance, over and over again. This plan worked until it came time to put in the key in the gate as the camera had died and we both fumbled trying to find the lock and insert our key. Whenever we did manage to do it, we sat out on the terrace and looked at that beautiful little town and I wished, despite everything, we didn't ever have to leave it.