After a short rest and a shower our FMS (Fear of Missing Something) kicked in and we were off to see the little town of Manarola. We made our way back toward the train station to entrance to the Via del Amore. We’re not exactly sure why this path that follows the cliff along the sea between Manarola and Riomaggiore is named after love since there’s not that many places to sit and really no places you can sneak off for a quiet moment just for the two of you. However, after the Atlanta airport it was heavenly.
We walked along the path for a while, but stopped short of Riomaggiore due to tiredness and a strong desire for a glass of wine at the bar that we had passed along the path. There were several tables that overlooked the sea, so we took one, ordered some local white wine and settled back to enjoy the vivid Tyrrhenian sunset.
While I could have been quite content to sit and enjoy the view for a few hours, the proprietor of the bar and Wife’s and my stomachs were not amicable to that idea. Thus, reluctantly, we found our way back to Manarola to search for a good place to eat.
Given my affinity for all things of culinary affiliation, it speaks volumes that as I write this I can’t remember anything at all memorable about that first dinner other than that management of the place we chose had changed since I was last there a couple years before. This change did not seem to be for the better. We were actually very fortunate to just get a table. An Italian holiday was the next day so the towns were very full of Italians taking advantage of the holiday for an extended weekend.
The following day was set aside for hiking to explore the Cinque Terre national park. Since I had been before I knew what to expect, but though I had mentioned that we would be hiking to Wife, she was not prepared for the intensity of the hiking.
We started off by first hiking the trail from Manarola to Corniglia. The trail starts off very sedate and paved and even in its roughest parts was not a challenging hike. The worst bit was the hike up the steps into Corniglia. Corniglia is the only one of the five towns that does not have much of a harbor and with good reason. It is perched at the top of a very steep hill. As we emerged into town we were panting and hot from the hike and climb. After we had refreshed ourselves with some water and a rest in the shade we went in search of an alimentary to get food for a picnic.
I really enjoy small grocery stores in Italy. They normally only occupy one or two small rooms, but the variety of meats, cheeses, and produce that are available in such a small store is very impressive. Another great thing is that the meat and cheese counter will make you a sandwich of almost anything in their case. While I was ordering prosciutto crudo Panini for Wife and I another customer ordered a pesto and pomodoro (tomatoes, in this case sun dried with oil) that made me wish I could change my order. I also took a chance and asked for a small piece of semi-hard cheese for Wife and me to share.
In France I don’t know that I would have taken this chance. The French predisposition to cheese that smells like a junior high boy’s gym locker would make me too nervous that I would receive a glob of goo that would make me reek inside and out. Luckily for us we received a very nice white cheese that had a milder, nutty flavor and very nice texture.
After making our purchases and refilling our water bottle we set off on a path up the hill behind Corniglia. This is where Wife started protesting my plan for the day. I guess I had not adequately prepared her expectations of what my plan was because after climbing up for about half an hour she began to question my sanity. To avoid getting hauled off at her request I acquiesced and proceeded a short way down our previous path and found a nice shady spot to picnic.
I love my native Kansas dearly, but I don’t believe that I could find a scene as picturesque as the one that joined us for our picnic. Steep hills, small villages, and the sea all combined to give the feel of something out of a movie. After eating and a short motivational speech by me to convince Wife that it really was worth continuing our hike, we set off to return to Corniglia and then on to Vernazza.
The trail to Vernazza was much longer and much more challenging than our earlier hike to Corniglia. It was also much more picturesque. As we left Corniglia we walked through olive groves that for all we knew may have been there hundreds of years. The path followed the coast for the most part except in a few places where streams had cut the hills back on their trek to the sea thus forcing the path more inland to follow the contour of the hill.
Despite the steepness of some of the climbs and the much more crowded path, the views when we would emerge from the vegetation lining the path never failed to disappoint. As beautiful as it was I wasn’t disappointed when we started descending into Vernazza. My legs were worn out and I was hot and tired. Besides, gelato waited at the end of the hike.
After spending some time soaking our feet at the small harbor, we headed up the street to get some gelato and wander around the shops a little bit. This didn’t last long though as we were both tired and wanted to rest before heading out for dinner later. We boarded a train for Manarola despite my mentioning that we could walk back (this earned me a raised eyebrow look and a roll of the eyes from Wife).
One thing that is always interesting to wife and me when we’re in a different country is the TV programming. We may not understand the dialogue, but it’s interesting to see the types of shows people watch. To satisfy our curiosity in this regard we flipped on the TV while we were resting and saw one of the most interesting shows. It was a cartoon with the Dukes of Hazard characters, but set in Italy. The dialogue was Italian so we had no clue what was going on, but you couldn’t mistake the General Lee, Daisy, Boss Hog and all the others. It may have been the weirdest fusion of pop culture I’ve ever seen.
Despite being mildly disturbed by our run in with the Dukes, we returned to Vernazza for a well earned dinner. After standing in the middle of the piazza by the harbor looking every bit the lost American tourist we settled on a seafood restaurant on the south side of the piazza. Little did we realize how glad we’d be that we decided to fight through the fatigue and come back to Vernazza.
Warning: The following section of this blog may contain content describing food of a highly delicious nature. Side effects may be extreme hunger pains and an overreaction of salivary glands. Readers continue at their own risk.
We started the meal with a dish of anchovies with lemon. I was a little leery of this dish because all my previous experience with anchovies involved the salt packed, overly fishy kind. Wife is much more a seafood connoisseur than me and enjoys a stronger tasting fish than I do. When the dish arrived it was more than I could have hoped for. Several fresh anchovy filets were lined up on the plate with small drops of incredibly viscous balsamic vinegar dotted around the plate. Lemon juice was sprinkled on the filets. The lemon gave the fish an extremely fresh taste while the vinegar gave the dish a nice touch of sweet richness.
For the second course Wife had mixed fish ravioli and I had fresh pasta with pesto. Pesto was invented in the region of Italy that we were in (Liguria) so I was looking forward to this dish a lot. It didn’t disappoint. The pasta was small, slightly worm shaped strands. A small dollop of pesto topped the pasta and complemented it perfectly. Wife’s ravioli were nothing if not sublime.
There were too many choices for the third course so we decided to go simple. A heaping mound of steamed mussels greeted us next and Wife did her best to stick to her assertion that when it comes to mussels she “can eat me under the table any time”. She did a pretty good job of trying too.
With our stomachs filled to bursting we found our way up the main street back toward the train station and back to our hotel. It was a great start to our honeymoon but it sure wore us out.
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