7/28: Nice to Cinque Terre

We rose early, packed, ate our last express breakfast, and checked out (the night we mistakenly neglected to show for was the most expensive of the three). It seems like no matter how early we rise, and how much we prep to get places with plenty of time, we still have to rush. Case in point: With our heavy packs, we had to race-walk the fifteen minutes back to the Nice Ville station so we could catch our first of four trains to our ultimate destination of Vernazza, Italy. I should also mention that here, on our travel day, we finally had clear, sunny weather with which to enjoy the beach. Figured.

After our bag-laden rush/waddle, we made the first train with just over a minute to spare. This one took us to Ventimiglia on the French/Italian border, where we boarded a second train to Genova, the large port city on the NW coast of Italy. From there, we had to negotiate the Trenitalia kiosks in order to purchase connections to Vernazza via Levanto, a small village just north of the Cinque Terre National Park.

We caught our remaining two trains without incident, and arrived in Vernazza at 3:30pm. I called our lodging owner, and she sent her husband to meet us at the train platform and escort us to our room. It was private and off the main drag in Vernazza, which greatly limited the noise from passing trains. I mean that as a compliment: Vernazza is so small that the entire village hears when a train passes--you can even hear one from the water’s edge on a quiet day.

Above: PRECISELY the comforter I would've picked for this room.

We dropped off our luggage and quickly changed into swimsuits, then walked down the main drag toward the tiny harbor. The village was PACKED with tourists and day-trippers laying out on the sand, the rocks, the jetty walls--wherever they could find space.

Above: View of harbor & jetty from main plaza in town. Dozens of sunbathers in background.

We walked along the jetty wall, then scaled over some rocks to find a boulder large and flat enough for us to lay on. We had an unobstructed view of the Ligurian Sea, of a few yachts moored off shore, and of the ferry that occasionally arrived to pick up or drop off the day-trippers.

By around 5pm we were starving, so I moseyed back into town for some bread, Brie and beer--our staple afternoon snack. We ate it on our trusty boulder, using Mr. Hale's Swiss Army knife to cut the cheese, and using the boulder edge to open the beer.

Above: The SERIOUSLY wind-blown look.

We lazed away the afternoon, until after 7pm when it was time for dinner. We were craving seafood, so we found a place in town where we got a calamari appetizer, then we split two entrees of trofie de pesto (Cinque Terre is revered for its pesto dishes, I'm told) and seafood pasta. The former dish was composed of noodles about the length and thickness of earthworms--though they tasted MUCH better. The latter dish was spaghetti with mussels, clams, and a prawn in olive oil and basil. Good stuff.

We topped dinner off with some nearby gelato: limone for Annie, pistachio for me. Cones in hand, we wandered back to the edge of town to admire the last bit of sunset, though the wind off the ocean was too chilling for Annie. We shortly returned home to crash early, enjoying our first evening in Cinque Terre.

Above: Vernazza at dusk, viewed from the jetty.

July 28 Vernazza Album:

Vernazza: July 28, 2011