Italy 2018, part 4 (Bergamo, La Spezia, Cinque Terre)
After the excellent night’s sleep, I woke up a little earlier in the morning, but I was in no hurry, so I had my morning coffee and spent some time dealing with my internet interests. Then I left the flat and slowly headed towards the Upper Town. Along the way, I stopped occasionally to take a photo or two, worrying that I might inadvertently omit something that I like or that catches my eye.
When I reached the Venetian walls close to the San Giacomo Gate, I noticed on the land plot at the bottom of the ramparts that somebody was growing vegetables in finely arranged garden-beds. At first sight it seemed only pretty, but later I was delighted when I realized this was a part of the LORTO project carried out with persons with cognitive disability who can practice horticulture and grow vegetables here. Through my work I have occasionally been involved in different projects dealing with persons with disabilities and thus I have developed significant understanding for this type of issues and I am always delighted when somebody from the “community” is thinking about and working with those who are (perhaps) less fortunate in their lives than the most. But, in addition to working with horticulture, the people implementing the project obviously have a lot of spirit and hence two scarecrows relatively far from the vegetable-beds, not fulfilling their “innate” function, but certainly very cute.
Proceeding leisurely on, I reached the Old Square (Piazza Vecchia) enjoying the surrounding buildings, but in peace and with the absence of tourists. It was still not 9 o’clock in the morning and the funicular from the Lower Town was still not operating, so there were certainly fewer visitors. I am lucky that I naturally wake up earlier and I often during my travels have an opportunity to enjoy this peaceful part of the day.
And so I did on this occasion as well. From the Piazza Vecchia I went to the smaller Piazza Duomo, took some photos when nobody else was around and then I entered the Cathedral. The first time I went in was directly after my visit to the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore which is incredibly decorated and then it seemed to me that the Cathedral was rather modest. However, when I entered it this morning, as the mass was ending, I realized the Cathedral was also very beautiful with abundant ornamentation, only rather different in comparison to the nearby church.
By the way, in addition to the Cathedral and the Palazzo della Ragione, the Piazza Duomo (Cathedral Square) is also surrounded by the Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica, Colleoni Chapel and the Baptistery.
After this, I went back to the Piazza Vecchia where I had a macchiato, i.e., an espresso with milk. I didn’t even want to know if there was any internet connection, I did not take my travel journal out in order to write something down, I was just sitting there, enjoying the good coffee, a wonderful day and the beauty created by the human hand which surrounded me. It was just one of those fine moments in life. In the meantime, the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore opened its doors, so I went back and revisited it one more time and that was another good decision, for again there was nobody else inside and that allowed me to enjoy at ease different details that may escape one when there are too many people around.
By the way, just to mention that Bergamo has nothing to do with bergamot, a type of citrus which got its name after some words of the Turkish origin and which is not used as food at all, but is rather popular because of its amazing scented oil.
After the coffee, I also treated myself to a local speciality – polenta e osei. This speciality comes in two versions – the savoury and the sweet (I took the sweet one). The original, i.e., the savoury version consists of small birds (e.g., skylark, song thrush, sparrow, quail, etc. – no comment) that are served with polenta. The sweet version inspired by the savoury one uses sponge cake, hazelnut cream, marzipan, etc., while the poor birds are represented with their stylized doppelgangers made of chocolate. The result is very tasty, but perhaps a little too much on the sweet side for me.
Going leisurely towards the exit from the Upper Town, I turned into a side street that led to a place called Rocca, where there was a Citadel. I was not interested in visiting the Citadel, but there is a nice, wide path leading around it. From one side, there is a beautiful view at the lower sections of Bergamo, as well as at the surrounding hills. However, it is important to make the entire circle around the Citadel, since from one section that is like a terrace there is a fantastic view at the entire Upper Town, as well as the hill on which there is the church and the castle of San Vigilio that I reached on foot the first morning. I really enjoyed the view and was very pleased.
Still, at some point I just had to leave, went back to the flat, packed up and refreshed a little, and then headed to the railway station, since that day I was transferring to La Spezia, a town on the shore of the Ligurian Sea.
In La Spezia I had rented a flat again and already back at home I had prepared detailed instructions for myself as to how to get there. After I left the railway station building I saw a small general shop right by a bus stop, bought a ticket and hopped onto the bus that had just arrived. I asked inside if it was bus no. 3 and they said it was. So, I counted the number of stops and then got off on the fourth one when I saw that the stop was not called as it “should” be and everything was flat (“my” flat was somewhere in the hills). I was puzzled. Not only was I not in the right place, I also had no idea where I was. Luckily, a gentleman came by and I asked him about the street, then he checked on his mobile and sent me off in the right direction. As it turned out, I first made a mistake when preparing the instructions and instead of turning right from the railway station, I turned left and went to the wrong side of the street, which meant I was catching the bus in the opposite direction and since the bus came just as I was picking up my change and I jumped right into it, I did not see the direction it was going to. Well, such things happen. So, I bought another ticket, went into a bus that was going in the right direction this time and was soon in the flat which appeared at first glance to be a little too far from the centre, but I was actually very pleased with its position.
Having left my things in the flat, I went down to the centre and soon entered a rather long pedestrian zone that led in the direction of the sea which was where I was going to. By chance I came across a place where I bought tickets for the second day, since the following day had already been organized. Namely, La Spezia is the main starting point for visiting the now famous and extremely popular tourist destination Cinque Terre. It was precisely this that I wanted to visit on this occasion and that’s how I ended up in La Spezia.
This late afternoon, the town seemed quite nice, especially when I went through a park and reached the shore, seeing on the right-hand side a path that led towards the piers where numerous speedboats and sailboats, as well as some small and some seriously big yachts were docked. The point was that I enjoyed the walk, the temperature was perfect and there was a very nice view at La Spezia from the piers.
La Spezia is a major commercial port, but huge cruisers that take tourists around the Mediterranean Sea also dock here. I could also see numerous military ships in the port. All of this is due to a very good natural and spacious gulf in which the town and the port are located. On the one end of the gulf there is Portovenere and in the middle of the other side of the gulf there is Lerici and both of these places were precisely in the visiting plans for my second day in this part of Italy.
After this fine walk in the downtown area, I went by bus (by now I was well versed in connection with the local transportation) back to the neighbourhood in which I was to sleep and there I went to a local restaurant for dinner. La Spezia is a town of a decent size, but regardless of the activities in the port, it is not a major urban centre. This concretely means that the public transport does not run until late, as well as that the town significantly quiets down after the nightfall. This was all fine by me, since the flat I had rented was incredibly tranquil at night, but I assume that this may constitute a problem especially for the young people.
Be as it may, I returned from the centre right on time to go for a nice dinner, although this one was not very original. La Spezia is famous for its mussels that are cultivated on a big scale in the gulf’s waters, but this evening I was not in the mood for something like that and I simply opted for a pizza (with unavoidable beer). But, in order not to have everything as usual, I decided for a combination of gorgonzola, walnuts and honey arranged over wonderful, thin and crisp dough. And it was indeed a very tasty combination. Everything was used to a perfect degree. As a matter of fact, I never feel guilty when in Italy I eat pizza in the local restaurants (those not clearly intended only for tourists). The reason is that I simply cannot make pizza at home and have it according to my taste. It’s not only a question of dough and flour. The main problem lies in the fact that I don’t have a proper furnace. I have an oven, even one made in Italy, with a programme for pizza and yet it is not the right thing. Pizza needs to be baked a very high temperature and this is something ordinary ovens simply do not provide. So, whenever I go to Italy, I make sure that at least once I eat some nice local pizza. And so I did this evening. With a nicely full stomach, I went later to sleep.
The following day I was in no particular hurry, but I also did not waste too much time, so already at 8.15 am I was on the train to Levanto, for this was the day when I planned to visit Cinque Terre, starting precisely in Levanto that does not belong to this national park, but is the next place reached by the train when this one leaves Monterosso that is one of the Cinque Terre.
The National Park Cinque Terre (Five Lands) is called this way on account of five small villages that stretch along the coast over the total distance of around 20 km. Admittedly, the distance depends on which way you visit them. Namely, the National Park includes not only these five villages, but also a good section of the nearby hills and mountains, as well as Portovenere and three islets farther in the south. There are numerous trails and it is probably possible to spend a dozen days walking along these trails, sleeping in one of the five main villages or in some of the different accommodations throughout the park. Or, it is possible to visit all five villages in a day, as I had decided to do.
Originally, I had in fact planned to spend two days visiting the Cinque Terre NP, thinking mainly of these five villages, but in the meantime I had changed my plans and had only one day for the villages. The simplest and possibly the most efficient way is to buy a roundtrip train ticket in La Spezia and an entrance ticket for the National Park, all in one. Namely, in each village there is a railway station and the local train makes a stop in each one of them. So, with the daily ticket (the ticket may also be valid for two days), you practically go from a village to a village in any order you like. It takes less than 5 minutes to transfer from one to the next. The village that is farthest from La Spezia (in the direction of Genoa, i.e., towards the north-west) is Monterosso al Mare. Then come Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore. From Riomaggiore to La Spezia by train it takes less than 10 minutes.