Cinque Terre, Part 1

The scenery changes from rolling hillside to rugged mountains as our train takes us from Central Italy to the Ligurian coast. “Look at the snow in the mountains”, I say to Monica, pointing to the white cliffs to the right. A young woman overhears and corrects me, “That’s a marble quarry” she says, giving me a whole new concept for ‘Marble Mountain’. We pass areas where the marble is stored, hundreds of blocks of marble, some as large as pick-up trucks.

We reach La Spezia, the service center for our destination. From here, trains run to the villages of the Cinque Terre (pronounced CHINK-weh TAY-reh). The station is crowded with luggage toting tourists. The train schedule for the villages is ambiguous and the trains are notoriously late. A train pulls in and a lady debates the schedule with the conductor. Their arms go up in the air and their voices escalate by several octaves, as if there was some other form of conducting.

Our hotel is located in the second village, Manarola. From the train station we drag our luggage through a tunnel and into a village of 240 people. I’ve never seen anything like this. The will and means of survival compares to an isolated Newfoundland fishing village of the early 1900’s.

The five villages and many hamlets of Cinque Terre have been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Each village is a cluster of mortar and stone that appear to have grown from the rock cliffs that jut out from the rugged shoreline. The steep hillsides are terraced with rock walls, retaining soil for the olive gardens and vineyards. These terraces represent over 1000 years of toil by peasant farmers. It is estimated that if stretched out they would measure over 3000 miles, equal to the Great Wall of China!

We tow our luggage up the steep path to the bus stop. The bus backs down the hill; the lane is too narrow here to turn around. Finally, we are taken on a winding path of asphalt high in the mountain. From our balcony we have a spectacular view of mountain terraces, villages and ocean.