I sottopassaggi delle Cinque Terre con Carolina e Harry.

My friends from the Netherlands, let’s call them Carolina and Harry, came to visit me in Italy. We decided to go to Cinque Terre for my middle weekend. There was lots of back and forth working out all the details beforehand and now I was on my way to meet them at the Airport in Pisa. I took the train from Firenze after my Friday morning class and lugged my extra heavy bag to the train station. I really need to learn to pack lighter. At Pisa Centrale I had to change trains to the airport. I found my new platform and jumped on the waiting train. I heard my phone ringing from the depths of my bag so I rummaged to find it and finally answered it.

“Ina, we are here!” says Carolina.

“I know! I’m just on the train at Pisa Centrale, I will be there in 10 minutes.”

“No, we are early.”

“Ok, I am getting there as fast as I can.”

“No! We are waiting for you at Pisa Centrale.”

“Oh. Oh! Let me get off the train.” I scramble to reassemble my belongings and get off the train. “Where are you?”

“I’m on the platform, where are you?”

And then I see her at the other end of the platform and we literally run to each other, arms outstretched into the biggest how-wonderful-it-is-to-see-you-after-8-years-I-can’t-believe-you-are-really-here hug. Then we walked to the waiting Panda rental car and I get the same hug from Harry. We drive off in the direction of La Spezia with the help of their Tom-tom.  I learned all new words thanks to their Tom-tom giving directions in Dutch!

 We drove directly to Porto Venere instead, and walked around the port, watched fishermen catching and unhooking an octopus.

Then along the marina and up to the church overlooking the Mediterranean. Then through the little village streets stopping for gelato and eventually a coffee overlooking the harbor, where we watched a yacht docking.

Back to La Spezia where we found our hotel right across from the train station. Not quite a typical hotel – it was in an apartment building where you needed a key to activate the elevator, although the staircase encircled the elevator with needing a key to access them. The hotel seemed to be a series of rooms in an apartment, each with its own bathroom and basic necessities. Giulia, the person who greeted us and checked us in lives across the hall, was studying for exams. She suggested a pizza place for supper and so we went there. It was closed due to work on the oven so we wandered around for a while until Carolina decided to ask a woman on the street. While she was asking, suddenly the 5 people who happened to be within earshot, all came over and suggested places as well. We decided to go to a pizza place that most of them had mentioned that wasn’t too far away. 

We had the most amazing pizza there and wine and limoncello, too, I think, as well as non stop conversation catching up on the past 8 years or so. Back to the hotel and to bed.

The next morning we went to Giulia’s breakfast suggestion  - Sylvana’s, a pasticeria just down the street. We ordered cappuccino’s, tea and chocolate brioche.

 A chocolate brioche is a similar in looks to a French croissant but the similarity ends there. It isn’t as flaky, but inside, instead of the strip of chocolate the French ones have, these have chocolate custard and then some icing sugar sprinkled on top. For breakfast. I love this place!

After breakfast, Carolina happened to have the train schedule printed and we figured we could make it to the train station for the next train. Carolina is tour guide extraordinaire. She booked the hotels, told me which train to get on, had train schedules for our outings. Everything. I love Carolina! Of course we didn’t take into account the line up for tickets so we ended up running to our platform. When we got there, there were two trains on our track, obviously going in opposite directions. We opted to get on the one that was on the right, seeing as we wanted to go north. Just as the doors were about to close the large group of Italian seniors realized that they were on the wrong train so they all ran screaming to our train and the man in the red pants, white vest and designer sunglasses (how do they manage to pull that off?) held the door open as they pulled each other on to the train. Then there was the requisite arguing with the people already on the train about using the other doors and then trying to decide where to sit. All very entertaining.

Cinque Terre is a series of seaside villages that cling to the side of the cliffs and are almost completely unreachable and isolated. 

The first one is 5 minutes away, Riomaggiore.

We got stuck behind the group of seniors and had to wait until they decided where they were going before we went the opposite way. Riomaggiore is a pretty little fishing village with spectacular views up the coast and a little marina for the little fishing boats. We stopped for coffee and then headed back to the train station for the next village. As we were buying our tickets, the train was coming in so we had to run under the tracks to get it and just missed it, so we went back to town until the next one in an hour.

Manarolla is similar to Riomaggiore except that it is a little bit bigger, or so it seems. On the way to the little harbor, you have to cross a raised piazza where, as if on cue, children were playing soccer. 

Down to the harbor we went to gape at the stunning views again, and then back to the train station, wondering if our tickets were just for the one stop or sort of a day pass, since we bought them without listening to the whole explanation as we were trying to catch the train. We took a chance and didn’t buy a ticket, on Harry’s suggestion. Carolina wasn’t so sure. 

At the next stop, Corniglia, the village isn’t immediately, conveniently, just outside the train station, but on the other side of the hill and an enormous set of stairs leading up. 

So we hiked up, grumbling about the inconvenience and once in the pretty little village, we only had time for gelato – there is ALWAYS time for gelato – 

before having to hoof it down in order to not miss the next train. Because if we did, we certainly would not have climbed all those stairs again but would have sat in the rather bleak train station.

The next village, Vernazza

has a much bigger harbor but its big draw is the beautiful stone church right at the waters edge. It was the perfect place to indulge in while we waited out the rain. Then we wandered around a little bit more and onto the next village.

Monterosso is the largest of the villages, with a long boardwalk and beach linig the town. We also saw cars which we didn’t see in any of the other villages. We walked through the town, stopped for bruschetta and wine and then back to the station for our train back to La Spezia. We waited on the platform for our train only to realize that our train was on the other platform, so we had to run under again, only to just miss this train again. So we waited, Harry went to check the schedule ("Schnell, Harry!") just to be absolutely certain that we were on the right track headed in the right direction. We were and in 30 minutes we were back in La Spezia and our hotel.

Supper was at the first place we wanted to go to – the pizza oven was fixed and the pizza was delicious of course.

On Sunday, after our chocolate brioche breakfast, we drove off to Lerici which we couldn’t access because of a triathlon and so headed to Forte dei Marmi. Which is a very swish seaside town. The funny thing about the villages on the coast is that you can’t actually see the sea from them, unless you go into one of the private bagnos that line the beach. After coffee in the main piazza we drove off to Viareggio and pizza lunch was followed by the requisite send-off gelato.

Then we piled back into the Panda and headed to Pisa airport. I even got a glimpse of the Leaning Tower from the car! I opted to take the bus back to Firenze since it was right there when we dropped off the car. It took me a while to realize that it was so full because there was a train strike (How are you supposed to find out about these?) Harry and Carolina waited for the bus to leave and waved until I was out of sight. It was so great to be able to meet friends and take a tiny little break.