This is Cinque Terre
Have you heard of peak experiences? Those times in your life that linger long after the photos are posted and the dust has settled? My peak experiences aren’t transformational moments—having children, for example, counted as three profound moments in my life, but those fall into a different category. Peak experiences may seem quiet from the outside, but within, something shifts or falls into place. For me they almost always include a sense of connection and they always involve travel.
I’m not sure why that is. But when I remember my peak moments—riding in a jeep over the dusty roads on the Sicilian island of Favignana as my children ate cherries in the back while belting out Italian songs or standing with my family on a drizzly street corner in Brussels, reading a scripted menu with noses lifted to catch the scent of beer sauce and frites—they are almost all while traveling. Maybe those moments are easier to remember because I take photos and I recite the stories, but I think it’s more that when I travel, I’m open, receptive, in a way I can’t be when I’m hurrying to work or distracted by how I’ll resolve a sticky plot point.
No, when I travel, I’m all in, as it were. So when those incandescent moments arrive, I’m ready. I see, smell, touch, taste with all my senses. And it’s that which grounds me—to my experience, to myself…to my world.
Magic, no?
Scanning over the peak experiences of my life is like poring over the very best of photo albums. And the experience on an early page of that album is my college backpacking trip through Europe.
Like summer camp, which my children seem to love despite the laughing tales of eating food that’s fallen in the dirt with a declaration of “camp spice!”, backpacking isn’t the romantic experience people imagine. It’s a lot of flea-bitten beds and scrounging for cheap bread and clawing through an overstuffed pack in search of a rain cover in a sudden storm. I think it’s the habitual tediousness that make the moments of spontaneous grace shine with the white hot power of a stage-lamp set to “floodlight”.
I experienced one such floodlight in Cinque Terre.
I arrived to Cinque Terre as I arrived to all my destinations back then. I stepped off the train in Riomaggiore and nodded to myself, “This is Cinque Terre.”
It must have been some method of grounding, to root me in place as I drifted over the continent, but I always stepped off the train this way. “This is Lisbon. This is Prague. This is Dublin.” I never failed to say it, and in case you are supposing I said it in my head, no, I felt like I had to say it aloud. Softly, lest my fellow passengers think me a loon, but I said it. Every time.
And so I arrived in Riomaggiore and whispered, “This is Cinque Terre.” I noted the colorful houses, the sea glittering below. Just like Rick Steves promised.
Perennially footsore, I made my way to the hostel and began the usual process of surreptitiously checking out my fellow travelers, to see who I’d crossed paths with before. I perked to find Dave, who I’d met in Barcelona. A familiar face when you’re traveling alone, especially as a young woman, is a real treat.
Quickly Dave and I bonded with Ellen and Margaret, two Australians traveling together. The four of us strolled the paths between the villages together, we counted coins in the market together, and we sunned ourselves in the harbor together. I adored Ellen and Margaret, especially. They had an easy surety that I longed for, a quick laugh and a ready spirit. In my mind, they loomed like Amazons, strong and golden.
One day, we hiked from Riomaggiore to a beach we’d heard about through the backpacker’s grapevine. We lingered on the pebbled shore for much of the day, talking about everything and nothing, mostly just enjoying the break. I had ripped out half the pages in my guidebook by this point (when you backpack, you look to lose any irrelevant ounce), and so was halfway through my three-month backpacking stint. The pause felt delicious.
As the sun hovered over the horizon, we gathered our things and studied the steep path back up to the road. My head tilted back, I confessed my reluctance to begin that slog. Dave noticed an abandoned train tunnel to our left as we faced the water. We could hike through it to Corniglia and hop a train back to Riomaggiore. With the cavalier shrug that defines much of backpacking (and makes me tremble as Gabe formulates his own dream of backpacking through Europe—my mother would tell me this is what we in the parenting biz call “karma”) we shrugged on our daypacks and sauntered towards the tunnel, filled with the spirit of adventure. Who knew what lay beyond the bend?
Darkness, as it turned out.
A lot of darkness. It descended like a lead curtain, cutting out light and dampening sound. Ellen had a “torch”, but being of backpacking dimensions, it softened a beam of darkness more than provided any real light. Nonetheless we huddled behind her and crept forward.
Time loses all scale in darkness. Had we been walking for five minutes or fifty?
More doubts crept in. Was this tunnel really abandoned? Had we we missed some critical piece of evidence, was a train even now barreling towards us? We whispered our fears to each other, the darkness muting our voices, deadening our confidence.
We formed a line, and I kept one hand on the side of the tunnel, whipping it back when I touched something furry or damp. I couldn’t draw a full breath. The clattering of rocks as I stumbled echoed around me. My ears keened for the sound of the train.
Suddenly, from behind me, Margaret’s voice…it rose in an aria. Her voice cut through the stifling silence and soared to impossible heights. My spine straightened, my feet felt lighter and I effortlessly stepped over the stones that had tripped me moments earlier. None of us said a word as we let Margaret’s swelling opera refill us, refresh us, define our moment in time.
As the last notes trailed away, we turned a corner and staggered into sunlight.
Later that evening, we splurged on a hot dinner (a rarity for backpackers, I can count my hot meals in those three months on my two hands). I ordered the cheapest thing on the menu—pasta slicked with a savory green sauce, my first pesto. We topped off each other’s glasses of slightly effervescent white wine, taking turns recounting the story of the train tunnel, of Margaret’s song. How had she not shared that she was an opera singer in Sydney? We laughed and sat back to catch the last of the sun as it slipped behind the gentle sea.
As peak experiences go, that was pretty peak-y.
So peak-y, I’ve refused to return to Cinque Terre, sure that stepping back now would only be a pale facsimile of that moment on the restaurant terrace, when it seemed all there was in the world was that gold-tinged wine, the laughing eyes of my friends, the overarching scent of basil. Plus, it’s been thirty years and Cinque Terre has left the purview of backpackers and entered the world stage. If you are on any Italy-based travel forums, you too have heard tales of piazzas so packed one can’t move, the oxygen in the air sucked away, leaving only heat and sweat.
Not for me.
But with Italy just tipping over the edge of pandemic recovery—regions opening once more in the wake of tanking COVID numbers (as of this writing, Spello has only 3 active cases!) but too soon for travelers to have remembered where they stored their suitcases, this seemed of all times, the time.
I felt my excitement rising as our Fiat whipped through the 300 kilometers to La Spezia, where we hopped on a train to Vernazza. Stepping off the train, I heard my name and turned to find Ruth, of Cinque Terre Vacation, waiting for me. I’d learned the value of a good welcome back in Venice when Trisha met us in the parking lot to shepherd us to our apartment on her family’s boat. Arriving to a welcome allows me to arrive present and ready, rather than fractious and in need of a nap.
I’d heard horror stories about bringing luggage into Cinque Terre, so I was pleasantly surprised that my rolling carry-on posed no problem to Ruth’s centrally located apartment. The only problem was that stepping into the apartment, I almost didn’t want to leave again. My kids had to nudge me out of the way as I stalled at the top of the stairs, bewitched by the sight of the aquamarine sea on one side of the house and the colorful tumble of Vernazza on the other. The apartment so much embodied the beauty of Cinque Terre, that I felt if I did nothing more than step onto the terrace, I’d have arrived.
There’s more about Ruth’s apartments here. I encourage you to check them out on your next trip to Cinque Terre. Not only was this architecturally designed apartment far and away my favorite Airbnb of all time, Ruth made sure we discovered the Vernazza that she herself fell in love with when she met and married her Ligurian husband here twenty-six years ago.
Our first day in Cinque Terre, we did what I suppose is the modern equivalent of my old backpacking grounding trick of announcing to myself, “This is Cinque Terre.” That is, we do very little on first traveling days, just wander and get our bearings—no museums, no tours, no fuss. Our first day in Vernazza was much like that— we didn’t do much except literally get our feet wet. The water was more beautiful than I remembered and the kids could not wait to slip into the startling blue and see what fish they could find. Lazy from a fantastic lunch at Gianni Franzi (excellent fried fish), I was content to lounge on a rock and listen to Italians around me argue about what to cook for dinner.
A brief clean up and on to aperitivi. The place on the harbor Ruth recommended with the rosemary spritzes didn’t have a spot available so we settled into the Blue Marlin, on the road between the train station and the harbor. It would have been nice to sit on the harbor, but honestly, being surrounded by sorbetto-colored houses—grapefruit and lemon and raspberry and peach—as they tumble down to the water, well, that’s pretty wonderful, too. Besides, we knew we’d be dining with a view of the sea at Belforte (Ruth had made us reservations to make sure we got a seat by the water and with Andrea, her favorite waiter).
After ordering spritzes and juices all around, an elderly man at the next table nudged me and gestured to Gabe saying (in Italian), “This boy…he speaks English or Italian?” We told him both, but English much better and the man shyly reached across the table and held his hand out to Gabe. It was the sweetest gesture, but it is COVID-times after all, and the man’s younger companions hurriedly reminded him, no hand shaking. So he withdrew his hand with a smile.
Our stay was full of personal moments like this. It’s unusual when you’re traveling, particularly to touristed spots, to feel seen, connected to people around you. And yet daily we found ourselves caught off guard by a friendly gesture. That first night, we had a fabulous time talking to Andrea at Ristorante Belforte—about Thanksgiving (his love for it surprised him), language, and Umbria. On our last night as we ate a delicious meal at da Sandro, our waiter from La Torre the night before hailed us with a hearty shout as he passed. When we stopped in the market on our third day, the woman asked, “Back for more fruit?” When we waited for our take-out meal one night, the owner of the Lunch Box insisted on giving us a “drop of wine” (and Gabe a bit of juice), to soothe the wait, patting our shoulders and calling us tesoro (treasure) in turn. When Keith called out to me “Ragazza!” (young lady) because I’d accidentally left my mask behind at the wine bar in Monterosso, two elderly women turned and we all laughed together for a bit, like old friends.
I know some touristy spots play the “friendly Italian” card, swanning around in a pretense of adoration. I’ve seen it a lot, I know what it looks like. This was not that. Yes, it helps that we spoke (some) Italian which prompted people to ask where we were from and how we know Italian, leading to fun conversations. But even without it, there’s clearly a real instinct to connect in Cinque Terre and that was utterly unexpected.
And it’s not just visitors. On Monday, when tourists were completely absent from Vernazza, Keith and I enjoyed a spritz at Burgus Bar while the kids snorkeled in the harbor (three starfish!). I watched the old men play cards at their social club tucked into the corner of the piazza, and the women on benches talking as one of them used her cane to form a line out of fallen magnolia leaves. I watched a gaggle of small children run down the street with water balloons to throw themselves in the water, giggling and splashing each other. I noticed a man watching all of this from his window.
So many connections.
I began to understand the urge for villagers to connect as an outgrowth of their lives in these villages perched between the fragile terracing and the steady sea when we followed Ruth’s instructions to Reggio, above Vernazza. Each town in Cinque Terre has a sanctuary above it, connected by a mule track. On each respective feast day, devotion pulls the villagers uphill to their dedicated sanctuary. Vernazza’s sanctuary, Shrine of Our Lady of Reggio, enjoys a beautiful position, with views over the step-like grapevines to the sea beyond. Knowing from Ruth that Reggio’s grounds are perfect for picnicking, we packed up fruit (this greengrocer in Vernazza seriously has the most amazing apricots, cherries, and even loquats which I didn’t think I liked!) and set off. You can walk to each sanctuary (and even between them), but it seemed too laborious. So we followed Ruth’s directions on how to catch a shuttle and how to have it let you off at the right spot.
With the sanctuary lying just a few kilometers above Vernazza, I figured it would take ten minutes or so to reach by shuttle. I hadn’t counted on the circuit the shuttle takes to connect little groups of houses in the area, and I particularly didn’t count on the villager’s total enjoyment in connecting with each other. Multiple times, the shuttle driver pulled over so she could chat with a friend passing by, smiles wreathing everyone’s faces.
The beauty of the drive left me in awe. The topography resembles southeast Asian mountains, like sticks thrust up high into the air with blankets of trees draped over them—steep and velvety. A river rushed by, fields opened up, here and there poppies dotted the countryside. An incredible drive, but more than the physical beauty, the emotional beauty of villagers getting on the shuttle and greeting everyone, earnest conversations with smiles so big they escaped the masks. These are people who love each other. They love each other so much that we as visitors get to enjoy the love that rushed forward to overspill the banks.
When the shuttle driver dropped us off, I half expected her to join us for our fruit picnic for a bit. Such were the warmth of her wishes for a pleasant walk.
And wow, was it a pleasant walk. Ruth told me it’s one of her favorite walks in Cinque Terre and, given that landslides have closed many of the official trails, including the Via dell’Amore that I so enjoyed 30 years ago, the walk between Reggio and Vernazza is now mine as well. First of all, no tourists! We had the grounds of the sanctuary to ourselves to admire the oldest tree in Liguria, the natural spring pouring from an eerily mossy cave, niches made of seashells, the flock of sheep below us, and the view of the sea beyond.
We only passed two other people on our walk (they were not digging the uphill, so I was glad we’d done it the easy way), which resembles a country path, lined with wildflowers and olive trees, as well as trees heavy with lemons and others spangled with glowing red cherries. Wild fennel scented the stroll, and we stopped at cartoonish flowers that we remembered were passionfruit. Pausing to snip a tip of wild fennel to chew while admiring the unrolling blue before us, I understood in a new way how Cinque Terre is a unique symbiosis of land and sea.
Aside from the flora on that walk, we noticed the stations of the cross and we stopped at each, as villagers must, as part of their devotional journey. The scent of ginestra, or Spanish broom, floated everywhere, interspersed with jasmine that covered crumbling walls. The long views of those terraced vineyards sloping down to the sea, well, it rocked me back on my heels at every turn.
The spirit of Cinque Terre glowed manifest—the connection between the people and their land, between the people and their faith. Pausing at the cemetery brought this home. If you’ve never visited an Italian cemetery, I recommend it. They are like villages unto themselves, with what seems like a whole house for some families and graves that are stacked with multiple people. And each person has their photograph on their headstone, which lends a personal air, like you’re old friends. We found a whole wall of children, which was sad, especially since many died of childhood diseases (pre-vaccines and all) around the same time, but it’s an important kind of sadness. To understand a community’s suffering is to understand a community. I looked on those old men playing cards in their corner of the piazza differently once I realized how many of their siblings must have passed away young.
I should say here that before we settled on traveling to Cinque Terre for our Ligurian vacation, we did consider other villages. Marilyn at Take Me Home Italy has wonderful recommendations for spots in Liguria and we pored over those possibilities. We ultimately settled on Cinque Terre because I wanted to visit while it had a chance of resembling what I remember, but also because in researching Ligurian possibilities, another aspect of connection became salient—the way the towns connect to each other. I love walking from one village to another, in Spello we can only really walk to Collepino and back in Charlottesville there’s no other town in walking distance. I love how trails connect Cinque Terre’s villages.
Walking the paths between the towns, and between each town and its sanctuary, and between the sanctuaries, those connections begin to vibrate with meaning. They aren’t just a Disneyland way to convey the charming, it’s how people got around hundreds of years ago. It’s how people accessed their vineyards and gardens, how they prayed and how they visited family. Those paths connect people with the land and with each other.
It’s fortunate that you don’t need to walk all of these trails to begin to understand in your bones how important these pathways are, since most of the paths between the villages are now closed, thanks to rockslides that washed away sizable portions. We expected two of the five to be open for our visit, but there was work in progress on the walk between Vernazza and Monterosso, so we only had one, the path between Vernazza and Corniglia.
Trekking cards in hand (the walks between the villages require the purchase of a card that is checked at the entrance to each path), we hopped on a train bound for Corniglia.
Once we arrived, we looked up at the village and flirted with the idea of trying to catch a shuttle before stiffening our spines and heading for the stairs that lead up, up, up, the mountain. At each turn in the switchback stairs, the view changed, became wilder, more dramatic.
Once we reached the top, I felt victorious, like we had somehow managed a feat previously unknown to man. It was hard to maintain that pride as a toddler zipped past my knees on the last step, but somehow I managed.
Corniglia is the one town that doesn’t have a harbor, it’s just too high. Because of this, beach enthusiasts are likely to give it a miss. And since it’s harder to access, those of the faint of heart (not us—da da da DA!) also content themselves with gazing at it from afar. Which means it’s a bit quieter, with echoing alleys that nonetheless offer spectacular views of the area.
By the time we arrived in Corniglia we’d burned off our breakfast, and so found a likely terrace to settle into for what I thought might be too early for an aperitivo, to which my husband scoffed. He ordered a wild fennel spritz and I had the perseghino, a Ligurian wild peach liquor. They were lovely—refreshing and not too sweet, made with liquors extracted from regional products. Doing a spot of table Googling, we discovered that perseghino is made from the leaves and pits of the peaches, an effort to waste nothing. Which explains why the spritz had more of a nutty than peachy flavor. Wonderful! The kids ordered a juice and a smoothie and we feasted on a focaccia stuffed with swordfish carpaccio with capers and meltingly soft sun-dried tomatoes.
Thus fortified, we began our walk to Vernazza. Gabe had asked me how hard the walk was, and I’d answered it was pretty easy, reasoning that Corniglia was high and Vernazza was low, so…
Ha! Turns out that was more of my backpacking optimism that the trip must have refreshed.
It’s such a challenging walk that I was sore for far longer than I care to admit and I will set my chin and look away if you ask me if I’m still feeling it. The path, of course—and this should have been obvious—does not just go down to the water. Instead, it winds up the mountains that circle the bay between the towns, before pitching back down.
Lots and lots of stairs and uneven ground, but luckily also lots of photo opportunities, which means an excuse to take a break for a moment. The path is lined with ginestra which always reminds me of Spello’s Infiorata, as the first handful of years, the flower carpets running through Spello on Corpus Domini were made from fennel and ginestra. You’ll notice the ginestra in my photos—it’s the yellow orchid-like flower that grows on bushes of thin stalks. I wish I could capture the scent for you; like wisteria, it’s akin to the smell of grape candy.
Beyond the views and the crumbling stone walls and the nets strung between olive trees like one more meditation on Cinque Terre’s eternal connections, the other thought that pulled me up that mountain was the promise of juice.
What I didn’t remember about Cinque Terre, probably because I was way too young to notice, were those terraced hills, filled with mostly grapevines, but also gardens with fruit trees. It’s one aspect of Cinque Terre that I completely missed—the area is a unique marriage of land and sea. When you’re standing on the street and turning in a circle, you begin to picture the fishermen crowding the front of their boat, eager for a home cooked meal, and the women with baskets on their backs bringing home ingredients from their terraced gardens.
Anyway, one aspect of that agriculture is lemons. I’ll be honest with you, I imagined Ligurian lemons to exist purely as tourist catnip. Who can resist a blue ceramic plate spangled with bright yellow lemons? Well, I can, historically, because I can’t see those plates without imagining the net bag of lemon soaps and the nearby shelves of wackily-bottled limoncello.
But now? I get it. Those lemons are something else. In Cinque Terre, the lemons of Monterosso are particularly prized (they have a festival each spring to honor their storied citrus fruit), and all up and down Cinque Terre, you’ll find sorbetto, granita, and cakes made with those enormous, bumpy lemons. They even have their own version of limoncello called limoncino, which I prefer. It’s less sweet and more balanced than most limoncellos I’ve tried.
Aesthetically, it’s a treat to find trees heavy with lemons in one’s rambles around the paths that wind around the comically beautiful villages of Cinque Terre. And even better when you find a juice stand making good work with those citrus fruits, especially when that juice stand lies on the highest point between the village you’ve left and the village you’re calling home. Boxes and boxes of orange and lemon peels marked the location of the stand, which has to be the most beautifully situated juice stand in the world. As I sipped the juice and felt the vitamins perk up my flagging neurons, I reflected that my life requires more fresh juice. Especially juice like this—tart and sweet and bursting with the flavor of the confluence of wind and sun. One morning Siena ordered a juice with lemon, apple, and ginger and I swear that was better than coffee for clearing my eyesight and preparing me to face the day, alive and energetic.
Now? I can’t see those lemons without a fond feeling. They are not as acclaimed as those from the south of Italy, but squeeze a slice on fried seafood or bite into a cookie flavored with the local citrus, and you’ll understand what the lemons mean to locals and how they can gussy up your experience as well. I can’t look at a blue ceramic plate spangled with bright yellow lemons without feeling a sigh of contentment. I still won’t buy them, though, since I can’t bring myself to enter Italian souvenir shops with magnets made in China.
Instead, we used the lure of a ceramic shop recommended by Ruth to draw us to Monterosso for an afternoon. Monterosso is divided between the old town and the new town. Most of the beach establishments (that Italian enterprise of umbrellas with loungers that you can rent for a day—I used to resent such machinations, until I picked my feet off the hot sand and lay back in the shade of rippling umbrella, watching the waves serenely glide across the shore. Now, as you can probably guess, I love them) reside in front of the new part, where the train station is.
Cesare from Nord Est who gave us our boat tour said that it’s an area particularly popular with families, since everything is so convenient. From the sea, the distance between the old and new section seemed quite arduous after all our walking, but in actuality, it was as Cesare assured me, a bare few minutes walk through a tunnel.
Given how popular Monterosso is for beaching, it’s interesting that it seemed so alive. With regular shops like bakers and butcher shops standing shoulder to shoulder with stores selling Cinque Terre themed merchandise. I admit, I secretly hoped Fabbrica d’Arte would sell ceramics with a lemon motif, only more genuine than what has pride of place in tourist shops.
No lemons; instead, fantastic ceramics inspired by the colors of Cinque Terre as well as the lifestyle. The pieces are billed as “simple but not trivial” and that sums it up. There are many with stylized olive branches, but I bought a small square piece and a bowl, both with anchovies painted along the bottom. I love imagining all the anchovies I’ll serve in those dishes. Because I’ve fallen in love with the anchovy.
Also called “pan del mare” or bread of the sea, I ordered them every chance I got. Fried, breaded, marinated, and salted, I loved them so much that mere hours after returning to Spello, I found myself slathering butter on crackers and draping anchovies across the buttered surface. I never see fresh anchovies in American fish markets, which Ruth explains is because they are native to these waters and are too delicate to ship without first preserving them. They are delicious and quick to cook, a chef’s dream!
But alas, I’m eating as many as I can in Italy before I have to leave the anchovy life behind. Once home, I’ll be reduced to just the oil (or salt) packed ones or the marinated ones. Both wonderful, especially when high quality, but I want them in my fritti misti, squeezed with Ligurian lemons.
Ah well, I’ll have my pottery, a lovely reminder of the mainstay of my Cinque Terre meals, as well as a wonderful afternoon exploring Monterosso’s chapel dedicated to the Black Confraternity, an organization dedicated to aiding widows, orphans, and those lost at sea. In every corner of the church, we found depictions of skeletons and skulls, making it seem like a pirate church more than anything else, especially with the statue draped in black. A fascinating town, with a surprisingly beautiful beach, far nicer than I assumed from when I studied the shore from our boat tour.
That boat tour, by the by, brought home another connection only alluded to by all our fish eating—between Cinque Terre and her sea. From the list of boat tour companies Ruth provided, we opted to engage Nord Est because the boat docked right in Vernazza’s harbor, making for a 20 second walk to catch our ride. We felt instantly at home on Cesare’s gozzo, an Italian fishing boat typical of the area. He had mats covering the front of the boat, and we lounged on those like a comfortable floor, leaning against the side of the boat in pleasant shade. As we passed each town, as well as natural features between the towns, Cesare gave us information to better understand the area, as the setting sun suffused the sea with gold.
Below Corniglia, Cesare dropped anchor so we could swim. I use the word “we” here loosely because I abhor cold water (thanks to an uncommonly cold spring all over Italy the water hadn’t yet warmed as it usually does by now)… I like my seas as I like my baths, tepid at worst. Judge me if you must, my children certainly do, but I tell them I can see their pretty fish just fine from my comfortable perch, thank you very much. Tired of being bullied, I did try to get in the water in Manarola but that’s a story for another paragraph.
Keith and the kids jumped in the water while I studied the beach just beyond their gentle cove. Something about it seemed familiar. I asked Cesare about the beach and he took a break from preparing aperitivi to tell me that it used to be easier to access the beach from Corniglia but the landslides washed out the footpath. Now the only way to access the beach was by boat or through an abandoned train tunnel.
It hit me like a big anchovy.
This beach, just beyond my splashing children, was the scene of one of my peak experiences. Margaret’s aria hung around me as I nibbled a piece of torta al riso—I’ve enjoyed this pie of rice bound with eggs in Florence and Venice, but the Ligurian version is savory with cheese and a smidge of nutmeg, like a quiche. Delicious… and it added a note of resonance to my remembrance.
The moment shattered as Siena yelped at the sight of an enormous jellyfish. She and Keith hightailed it to the boat, laughing at their erroneous image of a jellyfish in hot pursuit. Cesare chuckled and said these big jellyfish were no problem. The smaller ones were more painful, but they don’t appear until late in the season.
We continued our tour, passing Manarola and Riomaggiore.
I’m glad we got to at least get this glimpse of Riomaggiore, since ultimately we we weren’t able to get ourselves there. It’s ironic, since its where I stayed when I backpacked and I had a deep leaning to get there and walk the streets again. The hostel I stayed has thankfully closed (it was a pit when I was there 30 years ago and an online search revealed it only went deeper into the toilet—which, ironically, the hostel didn’t have—since my stay), but I wanted to find that restaurant again, where I supped with my friends. As it turned out, we only managed a village a day. We’re slow travelers by nature, and each village was so arresting, we wanted to explore them thoroughly. Trying to fit Riomaggiore in would have meant pretzeling ourselves, trying to make it fit where it didn’t. It felt more important to preserve what I like to think of as our Cinque Terre vibe of flowing and following leadings.
At this point in our boat tour, our Dramamine substitute (we cannot find non-drowsy Dramamine-style medication anywhere in Italy. In Switzerland it was no problem, we should have stocked up! And so should you if you are coming to Italy with a person who suffers from motion sickness) stopped working and so unfortunately, Siena, my child who gets motion sick just driving the few kilometers to Foligno from Spello, was not able to enjoy any of the aperitivio that Cesare provided.
Cesare aimed the boat further out to sea for our return so that we got a sense of the villages from a distance and how they all related to each other. As a bonus, he thought the gentle sea would be easier on tender bellies. The view of all the villages at once from the water did give a perspective on how the villages connect, and yet the unique character borne of their construction along particular rocky outcroppings.
Siena didn’t wind up feeling better, but it’s a testament to the joy of that boat trip that when we got off the gozzo at sunset, she smiled, green around the gills, and pronounced the boat trip fantastic.
We had a sense now of how the villages connected to each other by foot and by sea. And we’d begun to understand the relationship between the villages and the terraced groves around them, as we sipped wine Ruth provided from Cheo, the only winery in Vernazza. We passed a lovely hour of our trip sipping the excellent wine, while watching a farmer ride the cart through the vineyard. It used to be that farmers made their way from terrace to terrace with a basket on their backs, but now they have what look like little roller coasters, a single track moving up the mountains. Farmers sit in the front with carts trailing behind to more easily access the terraced gardens and vines. It’s a total trip watching those mini-trains in action, especially once we saw several up close on our walk from the Reggio to Vernazza and understood how very flimsy they seem.
The morning after our boat trip, we took a train to Manarola to get a fuller sense of how the villages connect through their fragile agriculture, and the cooking ways that develop to preserve that agriculture. Arriving in Mararola, I was so dizzied by the colors and the ships parked right there on the main thoroughfare and the bewitching harbor, I sent up a prayer of thanks to Cesare who pointed out Nessun Dorma when we passed it the evening before. Still, the walk took an insanely long time what with all the stopping and gaping and photo taking. Luckily we’d planned more than enough time to get to Nessun Dorma. Which is, in reality, less than ten minutes from the train station.
Now, those of you who don’t follow my social media are no doubt wondering, “Nessun Dorma? Did Michelle take this opera thing a bit too far? Why is she visiting an opera?” In point of fact, Nessun Dorma is…well, it’s hard to explain as it’s become a bit of an institution in Cinque Terre. It began as a bar after Simone, the owner, won the property in a contest to decide how to make use of this bare strip of land overlooking the sea and Manarola beyond.
Soon after the bar opened, Simone launched the Pesto Experience to teach visitors how to make this holiest of local dishes.
But it didn’t stop there. Now Nessun Dorma also boasts a wine bar in the converted wine cellar of a church in Manarola’s square. With this development has come a host of wine experiences, including tastings and walks through the vineyards around Manarola. Since then, Nessun Dorma has added boat tours to their complement of tourist services. As far as I can tell, all of their experiences are a blast.
Certainly if the Pesto Experience was anything to go by, Nessun Dorma is worth going out of your way for. I love cooking classes and book them as much as I can when I travel. As I wrote in The Road Taken: How to Dream, Plan, and Live Your Family Adventure Abroad, cooking classes are the perfect souvenir—they take no space in your backpack and once you get home, you can recreate the aromas and flavors of your travels. So when three people, including Ruth, suggested I book the Pesto Experience, I listened.
Luckily my family, who once grumbled when I said “We’ll be taking a cooking class while in Hanoi, isn’t this great!?!?” now understands what the fun of a cooking class. Family bonding, local connections, tasty things to eat— what could be better?
Add in the jaw-dropping views and gentle sea air at Nessun Dorma and, well, it’s a pretty spectacular experience.
I’ll go ahead and toot my own horn here—I already know how to make a great pesto. I make it often, I even have a recipe here on my blog that readers tell me is fabulous!
Even so, I learned so much from the Pesto Experience. Certainly I appreciated the tricks like icing the basil leaves (no bitter stems, per favore!) to fix the chlorophyll (in my blog I’d advocated for blanching the leaves, icing was so much easier and allows more freshness), but more than that, seeing the pesto come together in a different way to create what resembled a pesto butter rather than a muddled oil, well, my pesto making will never be the same. Plus we got commemorative aprons, now marked with streaks of green!
After we made pesto, Simone instructed us in how to spot mistakes restaurants make with pesto, based on where the oil sits on the pasta—and I learned that pesto should not be added to hot pasta, but rather warm, so that the the sauce doesn’t separate. It’s not bad if it does, but when I later tucked into my plate of pasta at da Sandro’s, I savored that creaminess that I now knew came from well-managed pesto.
Beyond the dreamy experience of making pesto in Manarola, the Pesto Experience has another advantage. You see, Nessun Dorma (the bar) doesn’t take reservations. As we sipped wine and listened to Simone talk about his experience creating Nessun Dorma, I noticed a line of people snaking down the hill. So we felt pretty privileged when the doors opened and we could stay at our table, as waiters brought us a phenomenal lunch platter, complete with focaccia that we used to scoop up our pesto, relishing each balanced bite (photo below, after the break).
Pesto, I now understand, should taste of the sunny spirit of basil at its center, propped up by sweet from the pine nuts, salt from the salt, spice from the garlic, and savoriness from the cheese.
A revelation, all over again. As it was the first time I had it in Riomaggiore.
Finally, we brushed off our pesto-y hands and made our way back to Manarola. The harbor beckoned and we decided to go back to Vernazza to get our suits. I wish we’d thought to pack them, but we had no idea how gorgeous the water would look, flanked by dramatic black boulders.
And it was easy enough. Within forty-five minutes we were back, spreading our towels along the stones and deciding where to enter the water. I had secretly decided to impress everyone and fling myself in the water no matter how cold it was. Siena had said she really wanted me to see how beautiful the fish looked through snorkeling masks and Gabe always wants us all to have fun together. I hate absenting myself because of my loathing for discomfort (see: skiing), so as they climbed down the ladder into the turquoise water and swam toward the rocks, I turned off my brain which bellowed like a foghorn at the screaming cold and pushed myself to follow.
They laughed in pleasure at my daring while my mouth widened in alarm. This cold…it was not okay. My lungs squeezed and I hightailed it back to the ladder. I spent the rest of our time lounging on my towel in the warm sunshine, casually eavesdropping on a group of young adults who reminded me of my backpacking times. They spoke three different languages, but English was their only common one, and their earnest desire to transcend superficial barriers to friendship—where you’re from or what experiences you’ve had—to create relationships seemed awfully, beautifully familiar.
So I was happy on dry land. And really, the water is so clear that when Gabe came running to me, sputtering about “balls of fish! there are balls of fish!” I could follow his finger to watch a teeming circle of silvery fish, rotating around an invisible point. Seriously, the waters around Cinque Terre are better than some aquariums I’ve visited.
On our return to Vernazza we got ourselves cleaned up for a special visitor. Keith’s cousin Marilyn who runs the aforementioned travel website Take Me Home Italy took the train from her home in Chiavari for an aperitivo so we could finally meet. She’d reached out to me on Twitter years ago because she was interested in my memoir of living in Italy, Il Bel Centro: A Year in the Beautiful Center. After an exchange of messages, she asked if we were, by chance, related to the Damiani’s from Minnesota. Keith’s family did settle there after they arrived from Abruzzo, but I didn’t figure they could possibly be the same people.
Well, then she tossed out some of her family names and sure enough…she and Keith are some sort of cousins. We decided we didn’t much care which kind—marriage, removed, great-aunts, whatever—we’re family and that’s enough. She’s written for my blog (a very popular post on living in Liguria) and she’s interviewed me for her website. Still, we’d never met, not even in the ten months that we’ve been living in Spello (thanks pandemic!). So I was thrilled at the opportunity to gather over Prosecco.
How marvelous, among all these threads of connection in Cinque Terre to form one more. And what a magnificent place to do it.
In many ways, being back in Cinque Terre felt like straddling the past and the present. Glimmers of my adolescent self clicked back into my viewfinder and I remembered my first impressions of Cinque Terre. Back then, I loved it for its cheap food, nice beaches, relaxed atmosphere, and all the pretty colors. That was it and that was enough.
Now, of course, I see so much more. A deeper nuance has shifted my perception and more than anything I appreciate the feeling of all these threads of connection—between the villages, between the people and the land, and between the land and sea. It seems to have created an intention toward connection here—people reach out to each other and even to tourists with real warmth.
So much of life is woven together in Cinque Terre, with a flair and beauty not often seen together.
It’s really quite extraordinary.
And how incredible to open the door for my children, to allow them to glimpse the link between my past and my present. As they sighed in daily wonder at the beauty all around them, my chest swelled. Both for the opportunity to show them the Cinque Terre I fell in love with, and also that I’ve made people who understand the magic underneath the blue water and pink buildings. On our last day, I checked the weather app and remarked with surprise that, once again, the predicted rain had disappeared from the forecast. Siena sat back on the train station bench with a satisfied smile, announcing, “Just our luck!”
How amazing to be young and feel lucky—that brings back memories. And how amazing, after holding Cinque Terre in my heart for all these years, to watch as it became a peak experience for my family as well. I know our days in Cinque Terre are lit for them with floodlights because when people ask them, “How was Cinque Terre?” they get this dreamy-eyed smile and they can hardly get words out beyond a quiet, “It was beautiful.”
It makes sense, really, that they would hold those days close to their heart as I do. There were so many peak moments—obvious ones like meals of fish pulled from the neighboring sea as we watched the setting sun leave a trail of light across the water. A moment like that, you can’t escape the drama of the contrast between the solidity of land and the constantly changing sea.
Add to that the interplaying shadows of the fragile terracing against the wildness just beyond… and wow. You’ve got yourself a moment.
But most were simple, as peak experiences are—a combination of sensory delights that come together to wallop you over the head with a sense of NOW. Like the discovery of a red starfish.
Or throwing focaccia to Cesare’s seagull buddy who followed us home from Riomaggiore. Or sipping juice as we traced the line of the trail we’d walked from Corniglia. Or Keith leaning over the terrace railing and turning to me to say, “Cinque Terre smells better than any other place—jasmine and smoke and frying seafood and garlic.”
Or biting into a sunshine-filled apricot while peering into a darkened chapel on the walk down the mountain to the promise of a lunch of anchovies.
Or bringing corn chips from our aperitivo to the kids as they swam in the harbor, because one of our favorite things about beach trips is enjoying a handful of Fritos after getting out the water, and so when corn chips arrived with my spritz, I had to share them and watch my childrens’ eyes light up with bewildered joy.
Bewildered joy pretty much sums up our four days in Vernazza.
Is it any wonder that it’s Cinque Terre that spawned this magical feeling of being woven into the light and color of the world around us?
This is Cinque Terre.
And I’m so glad I went back.