Cinque Terre – Five lands to love
Text: Steven Yates. Photos: Steven & Laura Yates. Article from the August 2012 issue of DO IT NOW Magazine.
Italy is known for many things, from ancient relics to leading fashions, from beautifully crafted foods to delectable wines, but until recently Italy’s riviera was not known for its five lands – the Cinque Terre. Arriving in the beautiful Riomaggiore for a week of tranquil country life was like a breath of new life and a treat to undiscovered splendour.
Travelling by train from La Spezia, Laura and I arrived at the tiny train station servicing Riomaggiore. We trekked our bags up and down the steep stairs and slopes of the mountainside village until our map guided us into a thin alley that led to our four story apartment overlooking the aqua marine majesty of the Mediterranean. Don’t be misled by the description of the apartment into thinking it grand, rather it was a stack of four, twelve square metre rooms dropped directly on top of one another, with the top room having a 180° view of the coast. It was wonderful! No sooner had we dropped our bags, we set off for the market to stock the little kitchen.
For those of you who have experienced the markets of France and Italy you will know that there are none better, and Riomaggiore did not disappoint. The food is probably what we are going to be talking about for the rest of our lives. The Cinque Terre region is actually where pesto originated – so obviously there was plenty of that to go around. We added some local wine, freshly baked rolls, a wedge of full flavoured pecorino, pepper dews stuffed with tuna and stuffed olives wrapped in anchovy fillets … YUM. Next we attacked the fruit stands with vigour, picking up some magic apricots, fresh figs and a punnet of cherries the size of golf balls. The last two stops were to get some home-made ravioli and finally some walnut tart for dessert.
The afternoon was spent enjoying our bounty and sitting in the sun, with the occasional dip in the sea. Riomaggiore does not have a beach, but rather a harbour made of massive blocks of marble cut from the local mountains and deposited into the ocean with abandon, providing a shining white bay where the rays of the setting sun sparkle against the sought-after rock.
The next couple of days where spent hiking the 18 kilometres between the villages along the cliffside paths and wandering up into the terraced vineyards. The walks were scenic beyond imagination as we went from rock paths along the water’s edge up into the mountains where cultivated terraces were interspersed with natural forest, all lush and green, with hints of colour provided by wild lemons and creeping bougainvilleas. The afternoons were spent sitting at nearby trattorias, a cocktail in hand, watching the locals going about their daily business, which consisted mainly of sitting in animated groups gossiping.
We also managed to fit in a dive, which was lovely – more so to be underwater than because it was particularly spectacular. The visibility was good however, until the very inexperienced Dive Master and American tourists kicked up all the silt. The ground covering was pretty nondescript, mainly moss-like covered rocks. There were however, some unbelievable sights that made the dive very memorable. The site was in a protected marine reserve so there is no fishing allowed. This meant that we saw a nest (or whatever the collective noun for crayfish is) of crayfish – probably 15 of them in one place, and all of a good size. I have never seen more than 2 together so this was great. The eels and soft corals Laura found where brilliant and finding them was like finding a brilliant red rose poking through a desolate field of snow … very dramatic. Then just at the end of the dive we saw a fish called a cougar, which has the head of a fish, with the relevant fins, but its tail was about a metre long and shaped like an eel’s. Lastly there is also a type of soft coral that grows in the area, which is actually part of the octopus family. It is tiny, has little suckers to catch food and recoils at your touch.
All in all, Italy’s best kept secret provides for a wonderful world.
Dinfo box
- The Cinque Terre is a collection of five towns nestled along the coast of the Italian Riviera. The towns, from east to west – Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso – are connected by terraced paths that run along the coastal cliffs.
- The Cinque Terre was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997.
- The coastal path connecting Riomaggiore and Manarola is called the Via dell’Amore (Love Walk).
- Access to the Cinque Terre is easiest by train, from either Genoa (west of Monterosso) or La Spezia (east of Riomaggiore), as cars are not permitted in the majority of the towns.
- The only town not on the sea is Corniglia, which sits on top of a cliff and is accessible by 368 stairs from the coastal walk.
- The two most renowned drinks from the region are the Cinque Terre wine, produced by the cooperative using Bosco, Albarola and Vermentino; and Limoncello, a sweet lemon liqueur.
After three days we moved from our little house to an apartment in the town of Vernazza. Vernazza was quite different from Riomaggiore in that it had a small beach surrounded by a massive, flat piazza rather than the steep slopes leading to the marble harbour. This made for a much more festive environment and the highlight of our second day there was when a local Italian spontaneously jumped to his feet during lunch and began to sing along with the village musicians, who were playing their brass instruments and accordion. We feasted on panzerotti in walnut sauce and experimented with the different flavours of Gelato every day. The most weird and wonderful flavours where Cinnamon, Vernazza Creme and Chilli Chocolate. What a gastronomic explosion.
Dinners were, of course, a major highlight and the local specialty was seafood. We had two incredible seafood dinners, one each in Riomaggiore and Vernazza, which consisted of stuffed mussels and anchovy fillets prepared in a number of different ways, as well as octopus salad, smoked swordfish, mussel and cuttlefish pasta, calamari … and the list goes on. Then there was deep fried spaghetti and, of course, a few bottles of the local Cinque Terre wine.
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