Day 15:
Villefranche-Sur-Mer, France to Vernazza, Italy September 23, 1998
(Wednesday): Around Vernazza, How to find a room in Vernazza
Day 16: Vernazza, Italy September 24, 1998 (Thursday):
The Via Del Amore, Corniglia
We woke up at 5:45AM (earlier than when we have to work back home!) and
caught the 7:45AM train to Ventimiglia, a city just on
the Italian side of the
border. We transferred to a big train to La
Spezia, Italy, then to Vernazza.
Vernazza is on of the towns of the "Cinque Terre" ("five
lands"), five quaint little seaside towns in Northern Italy, just south of
Genoa. Vernazza, Rick
Steves' favourite of the five towns, is full of tourists,
all whom have read his travel books. We phoned two hotels for rooms, as we had
no prior reservations, but they were full. I was starting to get antsy, as I
like to have a room waiting for me, and not have to worry, or spend time,
looking for a room upon arrival to a city. On advice in Rick Steves' book,
we went to the Blue Marlin bar to ask for a room. The guy working there sent us
to the café down the street, where a lady at the café made a telephone call
and then brought us to her friend's three storey apartment. The apartment has a
spare room, with a separate locked entrance and washroom. The owner, Barbara,
showed us the room; it was very nice and large (the nicest place we would stay so far on
our trip, larger than our Parisian hotel room), and had a
refrigerator. It cost 80,000 Lira (about $74), not bad considering the size and
style. We had our first attempt at speaking Italian with Barbara. It was
difficult, but we were able to communicate and laugh. Barbara invited us
upstairs to her flat, where we stayed for about 20 minutes talking and drinking
Amaretto. She told us about her son Johnny who works out of Miami, Florida USA
on a "Carnival" cruise ship which travels to Miami, Bahamas, Jamaica,
and other Caribbean destinations. Barbara has been married to her husband Luigi
for 35 years.
We walked down to the harbour. A walk across town, which is a walk down the
street, only takes three or four minutes. We drank a
Coors beer at the seaside
bar (I can't remember why Coors; we didn't travel this far to drink American
beers, especially with the excellent French beers available), then sat on the
breakwater in the harbour, then sat on the rocks and dipped our feet in the sea.
Went home.
On the way to dinner Nicole found that she had left her wedding ring at Barbara's. When we got back to Barbara's we met her husband Luigi. Luigi took me outside and downstairs to his little wine cellar just off of the street (the street is only wide enough for pedestrians and bicycles). He had a grape press, about 18 inches in diameter and 30 inches tall, and a 30 inch diameter x 48 inch tall barrel in which he was fermenting his juice. He gave me a glass of his pressed grape juice (red, not yet wine), it was very good and quite sweet. We tried talking, but it wasn't as easy as with Barbara (or "Babs" as Nicole likes to refer to her). Luigi gave me a glass of juice to bring up to Nicole, as well as a bottle of his homemade white wine, which we will drink tomorrow night. We went for dinner at the Blue Marlin Bar and had a pizza each: mine was pesto (Cinque Terre / Vernazza is the birthplace of pesto), Nicole had ham. Our waitress was very nice, and sat with us for five minutes. When she went home for the night the owner of the bar (and of the 9 Lira wash, 9 Lira dry laundromat next door), Franco, sat with us. We told him that we were from Vancouver - he said that he had read a lot about British Columbia, we even knew about the Sunshine Coast (coast and islands a few hours from Vancouver). Franco said that he would like to visit, maybe even move to British Columbia (maybe we should trade places with him one day - I think we prefer Europe now).
Two guys and a girl, about our age, sat down beside us. We had seen them earlier in the day at the phone booth cheering, we assumed that they had found a room to stay in. It turns out that the girl had been at the phone booth even earlier, and had left her plane ticket, passport, identification, and cash there by accident, and only discovered in the next town, Monterosso, that they were missing. As they were at the phone booth for the second time, a police officer overheard them talking and gave her back her papers.
I sent an email to all of our friends back home, as the Blue Marlin has an email-ready computer. I don't remember everything that I wrote, I guess I was a little tipsy from all of the wine.
Day 16: Vernazza, Italy September 24, 1998 (Thursday):
The Via Del Amore, Corniglia
We woke up late at 9:00AM. There were no big plans for the day, just an
easy hike and sitting at the beach. Barbara came by and
asked us how we had
slept; she was going to the beach today as well (probably a different one
though). We took the 12:15PM train to Riomaggiore and walked the "Via Del
Amore", a seaside trail along the cliffs on the way to the town of Manarola.
The view was incredible, and the water is very blue and clear. At Manarola the
town looks virtually the same as Vernazza except that there is no harbour. We
walked onward to Corniglia, and went down to the rocky beach and sat for a
while, then went for a swim in the Mediterranean Sea. The water was nice,
warm and clear. We just floated around for 20 minutes; you feel more buoyant
than back home, but maybe it was just our imagination. Back on shore we had
lunch - we were only five feet from a topless sunbather, oh how I will truly
miss the Euro-topless beaches. It will be weird looking at girls in bikinis once
again.
We took the train back to Vernazza, went back home and tried Luigi's wine: it was good white wine. Went down to the Vernazza beach for a while. There was a psychotic dog that was terrorizing the couple next to us, jumping on them, chasing them, they had to leave it was so bad. We went back to our room, then came back outside when we heard the commotion from the wedding taking place. Bought three pizza squares, then went down to the harbour to eat with the rest of Luigi's wine. Got back home at 8:15PM.
We went upstairs to return Luigi's bottle. Luigi and Barbara invited us in and brought out some more white wine. We talked in their living room for around an hour and forty five minutes. For our two days in Italy so far, I would say that we speak pretty good Italian. We had a lot of laughs with them. Babs gave us some Italian lemon flavoured liqueur which tasted good. We told them that we were living together before we were married, and they were disappointed. They are very strict Catholics in Italy...we have them believing that I am Catholic and that Nicole is Protestant (even that's a problem - actually, our parents were Catholic and Protestant). We took a photograph with them and we will mail them a print.
Barbara and Luigi, please forgive us.
Day 17: Vernazza to Firenze (Florence) Italy September 25, 1998
(Friday)
Barbara invited us upstairs for coffee at 8:00AM. We stayed until 8:20AM, talking. Babs showed us all of the cards that her son Giovanni (Joe) had sent her during the last year. We caught the 8:35AM train to La Spezia, then on to Florence.