Cinqueterra is so very different from Tuscany. The food is still outrageously good - if you find the right restaurant - but now the highlights are seafood and white wine, thick soft breads and pesto. And the air is so warm and you immediately relax because of that feeling you get in the hot sun, near to the ocean. Different immediately.
Seems like a week ago but it was just day before yesterday, we got up REALLY early and drove from dawn to noon from Pitigliano, then up this old roman route called the Via Cassia, up several river valleys, back to Siena. We really enjoyed it... we stopped for early morning coffee and tasty brioches in a great town called Acquapendente which had a totally comfortable feeling downtown, a nice nontouristy blend of old roman city, old medieval layout so narrowish streets, but a downtown that was more 1800s to modern. It was nice to go in for coffee with a bunch of locals whizzing in and out getting their daily standards SO quick, while we lingered to sample as many different kinds of pastry as we could it seemed like. we have finally after this learned, only one breakfast pastry thing or your stomach will feel like lead for a while. I figured out that the reason this countryside seems more relaxed than further up north in tuscany, is just that, not every hill is crowned with a major villa or farmhouse... some hilltops are actually, just hilltops, not someones estate or agri-tourisme. On our left was this huge volcano that the romans use for skiing these days in the winter. As we got up closer to the Montalcino-Montepulciano area, the fields turned back again into the gray tuscan large clod soil and the farmhouses got more estaty, more visible and more numerous. but it was all good. We stopped again a few times, once to check out an old hot springs that was designed into a large pool by the Medici for the use of pilgrims and travelers between the north of Tuscany and Rome, it was a great hillside place, Bagni di something... then we also stopped at another hilltown. they start to seem really similar. We dropped our car in Siena, went to Florence by speedy bus then changed to train to Lucca. We really like the trains... great people watching and a great look at the rural area... on the freeways, seems like mostly you see the freeway due to the speed. We passed huge nurseries where they grow every ornamental tree in italy and we passed huge greenhouses and we passed pinoccios hilltown in the distance which looks just like the 1930s movie was painted from it and did lots of people watching on the train... lots of teenagers going from school in florence to their homes on the outskirts.
Well we meant to stay 2 nights in Lucca and go up to the local mountains during the day. but honestly we could not take another touristy ville. Lucca was fine but too familiar... big white churches, narrow quaint streets filled with shoe stores scarf stores and tourists.... And Lucca did not seem to have any easy to find excellent food. the one restaurant we finally chose, the menu was full of things Americans would think are italian food-- veal scaloppine, things like that. and everyone who sat near us seemed to be American and what did they order? the veal scaloppine. Enough already. So in the morning we got on the train again and it was great. we went through the coolest semi-mountain area then to the coast to this cutely ugly modern little town called Viareggio and then we went right by the huge mountains made of marble and huge yards of giant white marble cubes... and then around a few hills and marshes, to la Spezia.
At this time we abandoned all formal trains and got on the very relaxed local trains that transit through the cinqueterra. This is a great area where steep dry-ish mountains covered with shale terraces, old olive trees, old overgrown fields, drop into the ocean and there are about five orange-yellow towns that cling to these narrow ravines. They used to hardly be able to reach each other, except by water and even that was not easy. now as everyone knows you can hike from one to the other. so thats what we all do... and come back by the little local trains, which go about five minutes between stops, and are mostly in tunnels, hardly ever out in the open air, due to how steep the hillsides are.
There are lots of tourists here again but they are so manageable... no little tour guides holding flags... lots of interesting languages... english is NOT the dominant language, nothing seems to be... and the locals seem to be very amused in general. they laugh at all our italian struggles and some totally seem to ham up the idea of being a grandiose italian waiter. I swear some are putting on the act. Its fun to watch.
If you get to the two or three smaller villages it is not that hard to find a really good meal. I think Craig is writing about our great food.
oh good I just read his post and he did a great job on the Cinque Terra. I would only mention I do NOT think Vernazza is really that quiet... it is just that it has some great amenities and it is the best laid out of all the towns and a really nice place to be. Also he did not mention our great room and our great discovery of it. At the station this oily-smoooth talking guy started to chat Craig up about his great room that was available, and how it was only 90 euros and he was recommended by Rick steves... what a smooth moover, he is not listed at all and the going rate is not 90 euros its 60 to 70. we went to see his room which was convenient thats for sure... right on the main drag, noisy and not very charming. we told him we'd be back if we could not find something in our budget. Well immediately this incredibly sweet looking 4 foot tall grandmother beckons to us and says in italian with a few english words, she said mare, mare, beautiful room, mare. we followed her up a little street that is all stairs, turned right on antother street that is all stairs, turned into the first doorway and up 3 more flights of stairs... and there was our little room, a little whitewashed room with a little enclosed balcony that has our shower on one end, our bathroom on the other, with a window that opens straight out onto the mare, the ocean. it is adorable. below is a little courtyard, we are not the only ones looking out at the mare, but our room is totally private. the whitewashed wall has a few smushed mosquitos on it and our bed is a little soggy so I was a little worried about bedbugs but after our first 24 hours here I am still in love with our little room and also our little grandmother landlady, Elia. Her place is at Via Mazzini number 1, a place she shares with another B&B, and her phone is 333 495 2967, not that you could ever really talk with her if you were not fluent in italian.but she communicated great. the room was originaly 70 euros but for 3 nights we paid 65 a night. she was a hard bargainer.
Two more things Craigs did not mention. first of all, have you ever seen a tiny caterpillar tractor take 12 large bricks directly up streets that are a flight of stairs? its a hilarious but effective thing. looks like a little robot. we have seen at least 2 of these. Second... I have never seen a town as full of comfortable, overfed, friendly cats. they have little doormats here and there place by locals, they trade off who gets to use them. a few sleep in boats. anyway most of them you can stop and pet. they are tortoise shell types, and calico types and a black manx. and have green eyes.. very nice !
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