Along the trail (and in every city we visited in Italy for that matter) we came across little statues of Mary, like this one:
You see them everywhere!
We started seeing cats again in Corniglia:
Leaving Corniglia - a site that will haunt me for the rest of my life:
Yes, more steps! You learn to LOVE steps in Italy. On this part of the hike, they never seemed to end! I guess it's just a lesson that you have to work hard to get any rewards - and we were rewarded with views like this of Corniglia:
And here's an example of how narrow the trail can get - to Candice's right is a drop-off of about 200 feet!
After about 45 minutes of non-stop climbing, we came across this sign for a free beach. All you have to do is follow the trail down the side of mountain about 20 minutes. My thighs were so rocked at this point that as good as the beach may have been, all I could think of was, "if it takes 20 minutes to go down, how long would it take to get back up?" We didn't go.
Up a few more steps and the view gets even better:
You can see Manarola off in the distance.
Just after that, you come across a most welcome sign:
Yes, at the top of the trail is an air conditioned watering hole - serving wine by the glass, very large beers, water, sports drinks, etc.
We were getting close to Vernazza when we came across this - any guesses as to what it is?
I have no idea either.
Just over a hill, we get the first look at our destination - HOME!
In the middle of the picture, look at the two-store pink house. Just below that is a stone wall with three little windows and a second stone wall making a little porch. That was our apartment. Here's a closer look:
Just a few hundred steps down a windy path and we were done. This part of the hike took about 1.5 hours. My feet resigned after that.
On the way down, we stopped in at this restaurant called La Torre and made a reservation for that night to eat. This place was recommended to Candice by one of her coworkers who actually grew up in this town.
Before dinner, I went down to the harbor to take some quick pictures as the sun was setting and the light was amazing - here's a sample:
And I ran into this recipe for Limoncello - the drink we purchased from the hillbilly guy on the hike to Monterosso:
After a quick nap, we headed back up the several hundred stairs to the restaurant and were seated next to a stone wall overlooking Vernazza. On top of the wall and right next to our table was, of course, a black cat - sleeping next to his watering stone:
He didn't even move when we sat down. After a little while, he got up and took a drink:
And then jumped down off his spot and started begging the other customers for some scraps.
Of course, the view was spectacular:
Dinner was good too. The restaurant appeared to have two people running it - could have been a husband and wife, I'm not sure - as they didn't speak any English. We ordered Accuighe al limone (anchovies with lemon) again - we couldn't get enough of these things! The menu was limited, so we each ordered a slice of lasagna - which was prepared a little different than the lasagne you're used to - but it was awesome. We also ordered some muscles in a red sauce, but they forgot to bring them out, which was not a problem as the lasagna was so filling we were stuffed. Wine was just a half liter of house wine - but was still tasty!
During dinner, we decided to not attempt to bring back the bottle of mystery drink given to us by Achille - it had a strong licorice smell which made us think it might contain Absinthe - which although legal now in Europe, is not legal in the U.S. To celebrate the gift, we ended the night with a couple of shots on the porch.
Next day - up at 4AM to make our 5AM train to La Spezia and the 7AM train up to Turin so we could fly to Paris.
Here's Vernazza at 4:30 AM:
Time to catch the train!
Ugh!
1 comment:
Phenomenal pictures - THANK YOU !!! Sorry to hear about the train strike though...bummer.
Post a Comment