We’ve spent a total of 5.5 hours in Vernazza and have already decided it’s our favorite part of Italy. Heaven on earth. Below is a picture from the inner harbor:
We loved Florence and Venice was an adventure (more about that later), but Vernazza is so amazing, that I’m going to skip the remaining posts for them for now just to get you caught up on this fantastic place.
The Cinque Terre (Five Lands) is a collection of five villages along the cliffs of the Ligurian Sea – at the Northwest side of Italy, north of La Spezia and south of Portofino. The villages are connected by hiking trails and from the southern most Riomaggiore to the northern most Monterosso al Mare is only 5 miles. Vernazza is the village just south of Monterosso.
Unbelievably, we had no room reservations coming to the Cinque Terra – as all the hotels called leading up to the trip were booked for our three nights here. However, we learned through Rick Steves and others there are many rooms for rent by local owners who do not take reservations in advance and don’t advertise. So, during the 7 hour train ride over here today, I was on pins and needles wondering if we’d have a place to stay. Once we reached La Spezia Centrale train station, we called a few of the hotels and pensions in Rick Steves’s book just to see if they had any cancellations for tonight. One of them laughed when we asked – which didn’t do much for our spirits. We decided to try our luck in Vernazza and see if what we had been told about the rooms was true. One book said there would be room sharks lurking at the station waiting to offer rooms upon stepping off the train. We stepped off the train, but there were no sharks circling. Bad sign. Perhaps it was just too late in the day – about 6:35 PM.
Upon exiting the train station, there is a big board where local places can advertise – and many of the spots are filled with rooms for rent. Candice wrote a bunch down with the plan of calling if we couldn’t find any rooms by just walking around. We decided to walk down the main street and just look for signs in windows of stores, restaurants and bars – starting with those closest to the harbor. The following picture is of the main street looking back towards the train station which is just around the corner:
And the following pictures mark the beginning of our search:
Turning back up the street, there was a small bar/restaurant called Bar Gianni Franzi and next to it was a door with a sign with the same name that said, rooms available – ring bell.
I rang the bell – and expecting someone to respond via the intercom listened closely to the speaker. Nothing. The speaker did start to ring back – as if they were buzzing us up, so I opened the door to a stairwell leading up several levels. For some reason, I thought the door opened too easily and decided they weren’t buzzing us up. The door was just unlocked. We turned around and went into the Bar to ask the bartender if the place next door had rooms. She said no, they were booked. But then, a guy appeared at the doorway behind us and interrupted the bartender in Italian. She translated and said there was another room available for 90 Euro. He interrupted again – but this time spoke English – and explained there were actually two rooms available – one for 90 Euro and another with a view of the ocean for 100 Euro. We said – Let’s look at the room with the view!
He had the bartender call the owner, who promptly arrived about 2 minutes later. She took us up the street a ways and the turned right at the Internet café at Via Giuseppe Mazzini
up a series of narrow winding stone stairs making several turns along the way and passing a little seafood restaurant.
Another right turn at Via M. Carattino,
up some more stairs and a left turn led us to Number 19. After unlocking 3 gates, she took us around to the shared patio overlooking the ocean. The picture below is what you see from there:
And here is a video:
We were sold – and just like that, all three nights were ours. I forgot to mention, this woman, who’s name I can’t recall (edit: "Rita"), and who just met us not 5 minutes ago, and doesn’t speak a word of English, just gave us the keys to this apartment. We just know her as Christian’s mom – the person’s card she gave us who we can call if there are any problems – he speaks a little English). Not only that, but through Candice’s broken Italian, we tried to tell her we needed to go to the cash machine to be able to pay her tonight – but she said, No – pay when you leave (in Italian, of course) – at least I hope that’s what she said….
Either way – we just secured an apartment with a big bathroom, kitchen, and double bed. It actually has another room with a double bed, but because we are only a twosome, she locked the door to that room so we wouldn't mess it up and so she wouldn't have to clean it.
So, after a long day – we decided to go eat. Rick Steves has many suggestions for Vernazza, so we picked one that looked good and were on our way to Ristorante Al Castello.
Candice will pick up from here on the incredible story of Achille...
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