April 8: Easter in Monterosso

We’d decided to catch a 9:00 Easter service at the local Catholic church, but awoke to heavy rain.  Much to our relief, the storms pushed out before the service and we went into town.

I managed to dig out a not-too-terribly wrinkled button-down shirt and some kind of OK pants, but felt a little underdressed.  I had read that Italians are particularly proud of their fashion sense and… well… I don’t come across that way on the best of days.  Turned out that nobody else was in a suit, either.  I was very surprised to find the service only very lightly attended and kind of somber for Easter.  No organ or choir (just a cantor), and only a 40 minute service.  We learned later that the 11:00 service was well-attended, with lots of kids.  I guess 9:00 is too early.

I was also really surprised to find that virtually everything was open.  In fact, we found a café with the only wifi spot we’d seen anywhere in Monterosso.  Wifi time is based on spending:  a cappuccino will buy you 20 minutes.  We bought about 3 hours worth of cappuccinos and pastries, and finally caught up on email (and uploaded some blog posts).

Judy also picked up some fresh pasta to add to our Easter meal back at the house, and it was truly a feast.  The seasoning she’d bought in Riomaggiore was a light pesto/sun-dried tomato mix that was fantastic.  We coupled that with local cheeses , breads, wines and fruit, all sitting in the sun on our patio overlooking Monterosso and the Mediterranean below.  About as close to heaven as you can get!

Because the weather was so perfect – sunny with a nice breeze – we were also able to catch up on laundry in the bath tub and hang it on a clothes line on the patio, avoiding the vagaries of the laundry service and the not-so-fun trip back up the hill. 

We went down to New Monterosso where Aaron and Liz played on the rocks.

Later, I met the girls at Vinery Buranco, which is along the path from our house to Old Monterosso. There we had a delightful wine-tasting (€4 for two large glasses of wine and bruschetta, spinach focaccia, and other tasties ).

Up toward our place, looking from Buranco Vineyard

That evening, we went back into town and went to a pizzeria with I think about 70 different varieties of pizza.  They showed prices for two sizes.  We asked about the difference between small and large, and he brought us 2 pans, the smaller being probably 8-9” in diameter and the larger probably 14”.  So we all ordered our own pizzas, and requested the lower priced ones.  What came out were all 14” pizzas.  When we protested, he told us that the prices in the menu were for the “regular” pizza (the lower priced one) and the “pizza for 3” (even bigger).  Liz had also ordered a “side” salad, which turned out to be meal-sized as well.  So we went back to the house with really sore stomachs and a full pizza’s worth of carry-out.  At this point we were pretty beat and tried to turn in early for a 10AM exit the following morning.  We are all really going to miss this place!

Our home in Monterosso

April 7: Pisa

We’d had strong thunderstorms overnight but the clouds pushed out not long after sunrise and it turned into another beautiful day.  Judy and Liz had looked up train schedules to Pisa and it turns out that it’s pretty darn easy to get there from Monterosso.  A number of longer-haul trains follow the coast and connect Genova to Pisa with stops at either end of Cinque Terre – Riomaggiore and Monterosso.  So we caught a train, though we didn’t know how to read the tickets.  As a result, we didn’t know that we had specific reserved seats on a specific car of the train.  The guy taking tickets tried to help us – we had happened to get on car 6, but needed to be on car 5 – but he took us the wrong way to car 7 instead.  We stayed confused there until the next stop, when some more folks got on and had the correct tickets for that car… fortunately, they were able to tell us where we needed to go and we eventually found our actual seats. 

I’m pretty much convinced that trains are the way to get around Italy.  The cars are comfortable, the prices reasonable, and at least our trains ran on time.

From the Pisa train station, it’s a straight shot to the Piazza dei Miracoli, which includes the Duomo, Battistero, and the Leaning Tower.  To be honest, I was kind of expecting this to be pretty cheesy, but these are truly magnificent edifices, and in the bright sunshine we were blessed with, the marble absolutely sparkles.

That is not to say that we were not above being cheesy.  We took a dozen photos of us holding up the Leaning tower (along with every other tourist there).  And it doesn’t mean that there’s not a lot of cheesiness around the area.  If you want a plastic leaning tower made in China or a Pinocchio marionette – or for that matter, a t-shirt of Pinocchio propping up the Leaning Tower – Pisa is the place to get it.

We caught a late lunch/early dinner at a Pizzeria/Trattoria just off the Piazza, then wandered around awhile before heading for a grocery store.  Because the next day was Easter, we assumed that nothing would be open in the morning – and we would be arriving in Monterossa after their grocery stores had closed – so we stocked up on stuff to make meals for the day.

We then returned to Pisa station to catch our train… fortunately, a little early, because the woman who sold us our return trick at the terminal in Pisa had us originating in Monterosso and arriving (again) in Pisa.  How that was going to happen, I don’t know, but by the time we had it straightened out it was about time for our train to arrive.  This time we expertly got on the right train and headed for the right seats, only to find 2 older gentlemen who had gotten on at a previous spot and had overindulged somewhere along the way were trying to sleep it off.  But the got up and moved and after we aired out the car it was all good.

We had to change trains in La Spezia, a larger town just east of Cinque Terre.  A very helpful young man assured us that we were getting on the right train and in no time we were back at the Monterosso train station. 

April 6

April 6:  Monterosso and the villages of Cinque Terre

Judy and Liz got up early and headed to town with a bag of laundry… and again the laundry place wasn’t open.  Aaron and I met them down there and when I swung by the laundry a woman was heading out on a bike with laundry deliveries to the local hotels.  She said she’d be back in 10 minutes and I waited for her return.  Meanwhile, Judy and Liz had loaded up with groceries for the house.

A local train connects the five villages of Cinqua Terre:  Monterosso the furthest west, followed by Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore.  They are also connected by coastal and mountain trails, but we were told that the one from Monterosso to Vernazza had been washed out in the flood that decimated the town.  Finally, you can go from town to town by boat.  Tickets are required for all three methods.  We opted for a day pass that would let us ride trains and hike any trails all day. 

We took the train to the furthest village, Riomaggiore.  Riomaggiore is way more Anglicized than Monterosso:  signs on virtually all restaurants and shops have English, and you hear a lot more American tourists.  The village rises vertically from the coast and there is no beach, just a very small harbor that serves very small boats.  I personally didn’t find it nearly as charming as Monterosso, but we did pick up some pasta spices that came in handy a couple of days later.  We sat on the harbor rocks and feasted on cheese and coldcut sandwiches made with fresh local bread.

Connecting Riomaggiore to Manarola is the Via dell’Amore (way of love), a well-paved, 1 km path dug into the rocky coast.  And a much easier hike than our daily trips to and from Monterosso from our little villa.  I don’t know geology but the whole coastline looks to me like volcanic rock that got turned sideways in a geologic uplift.  Really spectacular, and really rocky, with lots of succulent plants (cacti, yucca or whatever the European variant is) which kind of surprised me because they seem to get plenty of rain.  Liz and Aaron went bouldering on the rocks below the path.  Judy and I found the Bar dell’ Amore along the path and had a glass of local wine (gotta love Italy).

After a warm, sunny day wandering, we took the train back to Monterosso and got off in a downpour.  We raced to the little visitor center to ask about a bus that we’d heard went up the hill to near our little villa. And as it turned out, it was pulling up as we asked.  Judy, Liz and Aaron hopped on and I promised to follow them after I got the laundry.  They explained that they were staying at B&B Ulivo, and after a few perplexed moments the driver brightened and indicated he knew where to drop them.  Meanwhile, I headed down the road for the laundry.  This time, the lady was there, so I grabbed the duffle and headed back to the bus stop.  After looking at the schedule, however, it became clear that (1) another bus wouldn’t be along for a good, long while, and (2) it wasn’t clear that it was going as far as our road (nothing on the bus route corresponded to anything on the town map we were given).  The rain had slackened a little, so I decided to hoof it back up the trail.  I arrived home soaked and wheezing, only to find 3 other  people who were also soaked and just starting to catch their breath.  It turned out that the bus driver had taken them a couple of blocks, told them they’d arrived, they got off, and found that they had far from arrived.  We learned later that B&B Ulivo actually comprises several properties.  He had taken them to one of them… but not the right one.  So they hiked up the road to our place, arriving only shortly before me.

After the rain let up, we went back to Old Monterosso for another really nice Italian dinner.  Judy got what was supposed to be shrimp scampi but whatever the crustacean was that was in there was not shrimp – it kind of looked like a really skinny crawfish, with no meat in the tail.  And included whole.  I had one in my seafood spaghetti mix too, and if there was any meat on that thing I couldn’t find it.  But I also had a nice big prawn and a bunch of mussels and other shellfish, so I definitely got a better deal.

Riomaggiore

Thursday, April 5

We woke up to more rain, packed up, and headed back up the road to the Hotel Brittania, where we could get a cheap breakfast and wifi access.  I spent a lot of time trying to get bearings on our place in Cinque Terre (mapquest, Google Earth) and Liz emailed the owner again for clarification.  It looked like finding our way was going to be tougher than Tremezzo.

We left in a steady drizzle/rain, but this time had no difficulty finding our way back to the highway system that would lead us past Milan, down to Genova on the Mediterranean coast, and then across to Cinque Terre.  In fact, the road system was great for 95% of the trip, the exception being a real traffic snarl trying to get around the ring around Milan, and the last few miles in.  Gradually the weather went from rainy to overcast to not-too-shabby when we were approaching the coast.  We found our exit off of E80 with no problem and the narrow, twisty roads to Cinque Terre (unlike those on Lake Como) were well-marked.  We had no problem finding our way into the town of Monterosso Al Mare, the first of the 5 towns comprising Cinque Terre and our destination.  Judy and Liz hopped out to find a bank (our B&B only takes class) and figure out where we a
re supposed to be.  Our landlord had said to call him when we got there – unfortunately, we didn’t have a phone hooked up.  I went back & forth looking for a place to park and stumbled upon the road that our house – B&B Ulivo – was listed at.  Went up it and found the street number, but it was for what appeared to be an almost limitless number of apartments climbing the hillside.  As I stood there perplexed, an older Italian woman approached me and (I assumed) asked if she could help.  She didn’t have a word of English and I had no Italian.  I just kept saying B&B Ulivo which really puzzled her.  She figured out B&B, pushed a button to page one of the apartments, explained that there was someone downstairs who didn’t speak any Italian and whoever answered eventually put on a guy who spoke some English.  As I thanked the helpful lady and she turned to leave, she brought me across the street and pointed to an olive tree.  “Ulivo,” she said.  Then she smiled and walked down the road.

Meanwhile, Judy and Liz had gotten the same guy via the tourist information center.  Turns out he is Manuel, the son of the owner.  He met us in a 3-wheel truck and had us follow him to our house.



The view from our porch, first night in Cinque Terre

The place is amazing.  We are in our own house on a hillside overlooking the old town of Monterosso.  Our yard is full of orange, lemon, cumquat and olive trees.  We don’t have internet and I haven’t yet figured out how to turn the gas on for the stove, but perhaps he can fix that.  He is supposed to come back with an Italian cell phone that we can borrow while we’re here. 

And on top of it all, the weather cleared into a beautiful day, with blue skies dotted with light fluffy clouds illuminating the green waters of the Mediterranean.

The trip back down to the village is a steep hike.  We were told there was a laundry in town and carried a big bag of clothes down a stone-paved path that zig-zags down the mountainside into town.  Actually, there are two paths:  one branch goes into the “new” part of town (which still looks pretty old to me) and the other to “old” Monterosso.   The two sections of town are separated by a tunnel through a part of the mountain that drops directly to the ocean.

Old Monterosso was the victim of some really bad flooding last fall, and they are still cleaning up.  But it looks just like you would imagine:  very narrow alleyways lined with homes, shops and restaurants, nestled against the shoreline.  Judy commented that Busch Gardens apparently got it pretty close to right with their “old country” layout (at least if you don’t walk behind the façade).  The laundry – which is “open 365 days/year until 7:30” – was closed before we got there at 5:00.  So I took the clothes back up, met them back down at the town.  We picked up some groceries and had a great dinner on the water before coming back to our villa to enjoy the evening view.

Words just don’t work here.  I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

The view from our apartment, Monterosso, Cinque Terre

April 4

April 4:  crossing the Alps

We got up, threw some more coins in the dryer, and had a simple but good breakfast at the Youthhostel.  The first half of this day exceeded all of our expectations.  We left Feldkirsh and headed due west into Switzerland, then followed A13 south through the heart of the Alps to Italy.  The weather on the north side of the Alps was beautiful, and we were overwhelmed with the views as we followed the Rhine to its source.  The Swiss cantons we passed lived up to every Heidi stereotype you have.   We climbed around and through the mountains (lots of tunnels that are engineering marvels) until the towns turned from German to Italian in name, the noticeable change being at San Bernadino… no, not California, dude.  Unfortunately, that’s also where the weather changed.  As we crossed the crest of the Alps, the warmer, humid air from the Mediterranean hit the peaks and DUMPED. 

The rest of our trip to Lake Como was in mist and rain, and not aided by a long back-up at the Swiss-Italian border.  Judy had been trying to get a picture of a border crossing since the trip began, and we learned here that taking pictures of the border crossing is a “no no.” We were told so when we were pulled out of line.  Judy said, “you’re kidding!”  The border guard assured her that no, he was not kidding.  We had to pull the camera out and erase the offending photos in the presence of the Italian border guards.

The southern point of Lake Como is just across the Swiss-Italian border.  Lake Como is spectacular.  It is shaped like a “Y” and the Alps drop precipitously directly into it.  It is surrounded by small villages, each dug into the sheer mountainside.  It is beautiful and scenic (at least I assume so… we were in thick clouds/fog).

In principle our trip up the western coastline should have been a piece of cake.  Mapquest did not serve us well in this case, and we made a lot of false starts trying to find A334 to take us up the coast.  Mapquest failed us further by giving us directions that had no bearing to reality once we got on the right road.  Our residence was in Tremezzo, but Mapquest had us there about 10km before reality, and had us turning on non-existent roads.  We finally got to a Hotel Grand Tremezzo to try to figure out where we were.  Judy asked some workers in a garage for help.  They didn’t speak much English but sent us back about 100m and said we needed to go up a “strict” road that was too narrow for our car.  He advised us to park elsewhere and hike up.

We couldn’t find our “road” and got some more help from another guy who didn’t speak English, and he helped with a pseudo-map drawn on a card.  We finally found the (completely unmarked) “street”, which was at best 2’ wider than our car at its widest point, and ran at about a 45 degree angle uphill.  Judy and I walked up, where after a stiff climb we found Residence Il Torchio, our place to stay.  Except that it was a house, and the only guy there was a painter who spoke no English.  Through a combination of sign language and pidgin English/Italian, we learned that (1) the owner wasn’t there, (2) the owner wasn’t answering his phone, and (3) the owner—unlike the painter—doesn’t do real work.  But he sent us to Hotel Britannia a couple km further up the road, and in reading the fine print Judy discovered that this was where we needed to check in and get our keys.  So we walked back down the hill again.

We went up to Hotel Britannia, where we did indeed get the keys but were informed that the rooms weren’t going to be ready for another hour.  By this time, it was 5:30 and check-in time was supposedly 2:00 – 7:00.  We were tired and hungry.  We went back to the car and I decided that we could, in fact, make it up the “strict” road… if Judy walked in front and made sure I didn’t hit the walls.  She did, and we made it up with a seriously smoking clutch.  We parked in the single parking space provided for the hotel guests, locked up, and walked back down the hill to find food.

And we did find food, and a local wine, and it was good.   A couple hours later, we hiked back up the hill to our house, and it was wonderful!  We had two spacious rooms with refrigerators, sinks, kitchenware, new bathrooms (with heated towel racks).  In fact, they were the only two rooms on the floor, adjacent to each other with a shared balcony overlooking Lake Como.  Which would probably be really beautiful if we could see it.  It was slightly over-promised… we were supposed to have Internet (there’s a router, but the password we were given doesn’t work), as well as a washer and dryer (there isn’t).  But the price was a barain—€45 per room, probably because it’s still a work in progress.  It will be incredible when it’s finished. 

In any case, a pretty good ending to a surprising day.

View from our apartment at Lake Como

April 3

April 3:  Off to Austria and Lichstenstein

(these next few posts may come a little late… we’re supposed to have internet but don’t).

Well, we found the Munich Airport so Judy could get registered as a driver on the car, we found our way to Youthhostel Feldkirsh in the far west of Austria (our next stay point), and we made it to Lichtenstein just in time to pay for a fake passport stamp.  It wasn’t a bad drive, and the youth hostel was really cool.  We’re pretty sure it is a converted church.  The walls were incredibly thick, so much so that you couldn’t get internet if you weren’t in the same room as the router.  We were given a room with 4 bunk beds (8 bunks), an advantage of coming in the off-season.  I thought we would be the only “old folks” there but we weren’t, and we had kids from all over the place.  But we had our own room, and that was nice.  We also had a really bad washer and dryer, but a way to get clothes clean nonetheless.  Eventually.

We checked in, threw some clothes in the washer, and headed down the road the 10km to Vaduz, the capital of Lichstenstein.  We chose to go there for a pretty cheezy reason:  that probably none of our friends have been there.  Lichtenstein is a principality with its own king, even though it’s not much bigger than Manhattan.  And it has more incorporated companies than people (by about 2:1) due to its favorable tax status.  The capital is Valduz, and there is not much to it.  We got there very close to 5:00 and fortunately parked near the visitor center (entirely by accident).  For €2.5, they will stamp your passport.  Who could resist?  Nobody stamps passports anymore except at your port of entry in Europe.  Lichtenstein, like its neighbor Switzerland, has not adopted the Euro.  It runs on the Swiss Franc, and like Switzerland has very high prices.  We were going to eat there, but after finding that a tomato salad was 20 Swiss Francs ( a little less than €20, but more than $20), we decided the better of it.  We headed back to Feldkirsh, checked the laundry, and headed to the old downtown in search of food.  Feldkirsh is a beautiful, old Austrian town embedded in the Alps, and I’ll bet it’s hopping during ski season and in the summer.  Not so much in April.  Today was Judy’s birthday, and there really wasn’t anywhere special to eat.  We ended up eating at an Italian restaurant, which had good food and Tiramisu.

We went back to the hostel and the only room with internet.  There we found a very messed-up guy on God-knows-what who was barely conscious, and a couple of very nice girls from Croatia who are studying to be dentists.  An interesting mix.

April 1: DEFINITELY April Fool's Day

APRIL 1:  A very frustrating day... started out normally enough, early breakfast with the intention of getting to Munich Airport in time to greet Liz and Aaron.  Through an incredible series of snafus -- difficulty finding the train, inability to use credit cards to buy tickets, the train we finally DID take discontinuing service 3 stops into the trip -- we ended up getting to the airport more than 2 hours after their flight arrived.  Then spent the next couple of hours circling around trying to find one another.  Finally connected and rented a car but didn't have a map and spent probably an extra hour dead-reckoning our way back to downtown Munich... then spent another hour trying to get parking straightened out.  The good news... we're all together (finally), we got a good meal at Opatija and had a drink at the beer hall (Aaron had water), everyone is in their room, and hope to get a much fresher, better start tomorrow.

Jim & Judy at Marienplatz

Liz and Aaron at Marienplatz

Nobody has any idea who the lady on the right is

At the Hofbrau House