Italy 2018, part 6 (Cinque Terre, Portovenere, Palmaria)
I spent least time in Manarola (the fourth village if counted from the north-west). I simply worried if I would manage to visit Riomaggiore as well and after the experience in Corniglia that seemed like a trauma (on account of the distance from the station, the heat and the stairs), I no longer knew what to expect. I still wasted a lot of time on the waiting for trains, since many of them were late and I could not rely on the timetable, plus it happened almost regularly that the train would depart just as I was getting to the station. Originally I planned to have a short break in each of the villages, for a coffee, lunch or ice-cream, but that changed a little, so poor Manarola shared none of that with me. This still does not mean that I did not walk around the village, which is small anyway, and I enjoyed the scenery I saw there.
A tunnel runs from the train station directly to the main street. It is then followed down towards the local marina.
When you get to the marina, it is possible to continue further to the right following the line of the sea and going along a wide path that runs around a promontory which (again) may be climbed, although the elevation is not very high there. Even though I spotted a very nice place on that promontory to sit and have a break with at least one coffee, as I’ve said, I didn’t want to stay there for too long, so I just took some photos and then returned to the railway station in order to continue. Already after a couple of days, the palest in my memory was precisely Manarola and in a way I felt sorry for it, since it was a truly nice place, but afterwards thanks to the photos and video shots I vividly remembered everything and it was fine.
Like Manarola, Riomaggiore also has a long tunnel through which it is necessary to pass in order to get from the train station to the centre of the village. There I could finally relax, since it was still day and apart from visiting the place itself, there were no other visits in my plans. That’s why I headed up the wide main street and then I entered some side streets that kept going even more up, for I wanted to get to the top of an elevation where I could see a stone tower with a clock.
By this time, I asked no questions whatsoever, I just kept going up. When I got to the top, I took a few photos and then I took advantage of a bench that was located on a small plateau from which there was a beautiful view at the sea, while the Sun was descending slowly towards the horizon.
I really enjoyed it there, but at some point I went slowly back to the main street where I finally bought myself an ice-cream. Then I went all the way down to the marina and there were some beautiful spots where one could hang around and enjoy the scenery.
While I was walking around, taking photos, a young man dived into the water from a rather high cliff and then it took him quite a while to get out to the surface. I already started to worry. However, he did get out a little farther away and swam towards a small beach.
With the sun that was getting ready to go to sleep, the colours of the houses in Riomaggiore got really pronounced and I spent some time there enjoying the view, as well as attempting to make panoramic photographs.
Then I went to the other side of the bay, so I looked at Riomaggiore from another angle that was still fantastic.
Full of impressions, I decided there was no need for me to wait for the precise moment of the sunset, so I went to the train station and soon found myself in La Spezia and in the flat in which I was staying in those days.
The day after visiting Cinque Terre, I decided to visit two more places that are situated in the surroundings of La Spezia and they are both very interesting, each one in its own way. The first one was Portovenere that is in the UNESCO’s World Heritage List together with Cinque Terre, as well as with three islets that are located right across Portovenere: Palmaria, Tino and Tinetto.
Still, before going to Portovenere, I paid a visit to a large marketplace in La Spezia. I was particularly interested in the section with fish and sea food, and it was truly impressive. Serbia is a land-locked country, so we can either eat fresh water fish (which I like quite a lot) or imported sea fish. That’s why I always wistfully admire these fantastic “sea” marketplaces.
In the direct vicinity of the marketplace in La Spezia, there is a bus stop where it is possible to catch a suburban bus to Portovenere. It’s very simple – line “P.” While I was waiting at the bus stop, I sat on a bench to wait for the bus. I was approached by a lady and she asked if she could also sit down, so I moved a little to the side and then she started talking. She is coming back from the market, it’s disgusting what they are offering, since she cannot carry all in her hands, they put some of the stuff into her small backpack and now she has to carry the purse in her hands, they were not kind at all (I just keep nodding and smiling), and what they are selling is very expensive, both the vegetables and especially the fruits (here the lady on my other side agrees with the first one), and after all Italy has become a horrible country, it is no longer what it used to be (a bus comes to the stop, she notices a man sitting on the bus), now even men are not getting up for women on the bus and those men nowadays are not worth their salt (she swears like a sailor, but with a “pardon my French”), they don’t know how to do anything any longer, there, her Romano, the husband who worked for 40 years as a seafarer, when he used to come home, it was an altogether another thing, now she can no longer do the same things as before and he tells her: “Luisa, if you cannot carry, we’ll pay for them to bring it to us,” well that’s out of question, but our daughter no longer lives with us, she would have helped, and the young of today are no longer as they used to be, nowadays everybody is just staring at their mobile phones, if they don’t have it, they don’t know how to communicate, “I want to see my collocutor!” (the woman to my right agrees about this as well, while I, still without a single uttered word, just keep nodding), “I don’t go through my life like a horse, watching only straight, I look all around me, all 360 degrees...” There were many other things said there, but I didn’t understand them all, plus my bus arrived, so I kindly parted from the ladies and left my “collocutor,” but from the bus I could see that some third woman sat in my place, while Luisa continued to broadcast her thoughts aloud. What a wonderful woman!
Soon I arrived in Portovenere. Here, one may claim with certainty that all these small places along the coast are almost identical – the difference is basically made only by the topography and how the buildings are arranged across it. Here, too, the houses are narrow, with 4-5 floors, painted with pronounced colours, the streets are also narrow, there is a mandatory church or a few of them, and there are also ramparts and towers. Still, this is by no means meant as any kind of criticism or a suggestion that I didn’t like it. Quite the contrary – each one of these places is really cute and worth the visit.
So, I first went to the tourist office and then through a fortification gate I entered the place and walked a little around it.
Needless to say, here, too, one must climb, but I no longer questioned this, only kept going from one place of interest to another. Thus I went up to the Church of Saint Lawrence (Chiesa di San Lorenzo), which originally comes from the 12th century, but was destroyed in a blaze and eventually got reconstructed in the 14th century.
On the top of the elevation there are remains of the Doria Castle, but I found the view at the Church of St. Peter much more impressive. The church was built between the 12th and the 13th century and its position is truly stunning.
When one is approaching the Church of St. Peter, there is a board on the right-hand side directing towards the so-called Byron’s Cave (originally it was called Grotta dell’Arpaia and in the meantime it caved in) and this was where the famous poet used to withdraw in order to get inspiration. One time, he also swam from Portovenere to the place of Lerici, or rather San Terenzo, in order to visit his friend Shelley who lived there at the time, thus swimming across the entire Gulf of La Spezia. Folly of youth!
I did not stay here for too long, since I wanted to get down to the port and take a coffee and have some rest before crossing over to the islet of Palmaria. Namely, I wanted to go the island that is so close and have lunch there.
At some point it even occurred to me that perhaps I could “make a circle” around Palmaria. According to what I was told at the tourist office in Portovenere, this takes 3.5 hours. However, I slightly wondered about the type of the trails, since I obviously still did not have the proper footwear for hiking along dirt trails which often involve big pieces of rock, as well as pebbles that may roll under the feet, and steeper sections, which all made it desirable to have the proper hiking boots. However, I was still toying with the idea of having a try. And then I remembered that according to my own plan, I actually didn’t have that much time, so I gave up the walk, but the idea of a lunch on the island was still on.
This place to which the boat from Portovenere takes people consists in fact only of a dozen houses and a restaurant. There, at least I didn’t have to put in an effort and choose. I did try to walk a little bit, so I went to one side, some 50 metres, then to the other side and then I entered the restaurant from “above”, from its back side, almost surprising the owner/chef who was watching over the restaurant. I told him I wanted to eat, so he told the waitress to find me some nice spot in the sun, since it was all in a deep shade.
There I had wonderful ravioli filled with fish in mussel sauce and then also grilled sea bass, but this is a familiar dish and taste.
As soon as I finished the lunch, I took the first boat back and soon I got onto a bus to La Spezia in order to go to the other side to the place called Lerici. It is possible to go from Portovenere to Lerici by boat, but I didn’t feel like bothering with that and the boat schedule, so I used the suburban buses, with a transfer in the centre of La Spezia.
By the way, here is the map that shows where I went to during this trip: