Buongiorno All,

We’ve made our way to the sunny northwest coast, specifically, the “Cinque Terre”, five tiny villages perched on the hillside above the Ligurian Sea and connected by walking paths. Last night we re-experienced the meaning of adventure, which is “something that sucks until it’s over” (i.e., then it’s an adventure!). After our third train ride of the day, we arrived in the dark in tiny Riomaggiore. Now came time to find the proprietor of the “affite camera” – private room we – had rented. We go to the Bar Centrale and I ask the bartender if he knows Simonetta and “Camere Paradiso”. He scratches his head, asks his brother, who makes some sexual innuendo about how he is paradise…while commenting on my eyes. The brothers discuss and, in a mixture of Italian, English and French (which I can barely hear above “AC/DC” blaring on the sound system) he says it’s a town of 1,000 people and he knows everyone and he doesn’t know Simonetta or her rooms. “Maybe you’re in the wrong town” he says; “It happens all the time” he says. Well, of course, I go to my familiar old reaction, and assume I must have screwed up. I hurry back to Frank: “Maybe we’re in the wrong town!” I say. His eyes widen. The “what ifs” start in my head: What if we have to get back on the train? Or worse, sleep on the beach? Much rigamarole follows. There’s a phone number, but it’s only on the webpage and so we have to get internet access to retrieve it. We buy a drink from the bar to use their wifi. We find the phone number, but of course we have no phone. In my head I am whining “Why can’t we go back to the olden days of landlines, with a pay phone on every corner?” Frank has the excellent idea of calling by Skype. Magically, after a few tries, he gets through, but the man on the other end can’t hear us. After much back-and-forth in broken English and barely-there Italian, he says “Meet me at the centre”. We don’t really know where the centre is, but we start walking back down the hill, and we hear a disembodied voice calling “Wendy, Wendy, Wendy”. We spin around: where is he? Finally, we see: he’s on a balcony, watching for us. He comes down to meet us. He is older and warm and kind; his name is Andreas but everyone calls him “Tuba”. He mimes playing the tuba. Simonetta is his daughter-in-law, he explains. He takes my bag and we follow him through the tiny alleys, with him making kind conversation all the way: he has been to Canada three times, on ships, including once to Vancouver. He leads us through tiny pedestrian-only alleys and up steep stairs (see photo) to a tiny, perfect, immaculate apartment and shows us around proudly. Now, I’m sure this little apartment would be almost as charming if it hadn’t been such an, um, adventure to find it, but the huge flood of relief we felt had to add to our positive impressions! Thanks to Tuba making arrangements, we had a late dinner last night at a restaurant right on the marina, which is also tiny, perfect and immaculate. (See photo; the view is from our window!!!!) Every single item on the menu was, of course, seafood, all locally and freshly caught. Yum, yum. Alas, Frank has been battling a cold and last night it came in full force, but luckily it is centred in his nose and his chest is clear. Off we go to start our walking and exploring.

Wendy and Frank

PS -- After the photos, there's more..and sorry about the cock-eyed photos -- for some reason they load in the wrong orientation...

 

We wrote this in the morning but didn’t get a chance to post it, so here’s an update written in the early evening. We headed off to walk to the next town, only to find…there was a landslide and the trail has been closed since Monday! Plan B: we explored “our” town, Riomagiorre, then took the train to the next town over, Manorola (see photo). It’s the shortest train ride you can imagine: when the schedule showed 2 minutes, we thought that was an exaggeration, but it’s truly 2 minutes, through a tunnel, with the 2 towns on either side. Even with the trail closed, we managed tol have an interesting day with lots of walking. One of our photos shows the very steep hills lined with terraces that are about 6 to 8 feet wide. They were made over the centuries by people stacking the rocks with no mortar; Tuba says there are about 1,000 km of these walls in the area. Amazing – see photo. The most interesting thing we ate today was a mixture of deep-fried seafood, including teeny fish about 1.5” long that we presume were not dressed in any way. I mean, can you imagine gutting a fish that small? : ) So tonight we will turn in early (a) because of Frank’s cold and (b) in hopes that at least parts of the trail will be open tomorrow and we can get an early start. I can’t believe how far away everything seems right now: I know I wrote a “to do” list before we left for when when we get back, and it was long, but I can only remember 2 things on it!

Wendy and Frank