geriandlennyblog: Friday May 20th

Friday, May 20^th – Cinque Terre

We picked up our rental car and headed west to our new hotel in Portovenere thanks to the recommendations of Janice and David Cohen. After a two hour ride on the highway, with local traffic zooming by us the whole way, we finally arrived in the area. Our GPS, better known as Betsy, failed us on one turn and we had to ask several different people for directions. Once back on the correct road, Betsy got us there without further problems.

What a surprise to see the spectacular mountains and harbours. Our hotel is simple but comfortable and we have the most beautiful view from our balcony overlooking the harbor and marina and the mountains in the background. Unfortunately, our plans to take the boat to see Cinque Terre today did not work out as we arrived just in time to be late and we missed our opportunity to take the boat. Our hotel concierge suggested that we drive today to see the first two cities: Riomaggiore and Manarola. We now understand why people opt to take the boat to see these amazing cities. Our drive took us up into the mountains with switchbacks occurring every few minutes all along the way. The views were specatular and we stopped many times to look and snap some photos.

When we got to the first city, Riomaggiore, we were told that the parking lots were all full and the police officer suggested that we try to go to Manarola instead which was about 10 minutes away by car. Again, our travel was amazing with unbelievable views. When we arrived near the city, people were parking at a pay lot near the road high up in the hills. We decided not to take a chance that we would find any other spot to park as foreign cars without permits are not allowed to park on the streets of these cities.

We had to pay for parking and the machine did not accept our credit card – only the cash part was working. It was five euro coins for three hours and we only had 3 euro coins. We met a couple who insisted on giving us two coins so we could park and enjoy the day. People are really friendly and helpful here. We headed down the steep steep walk toward Manarola knowing full well that they climb back up would be a challenge; but, we felt that we were up to it. Geri insisted that Lenny take guideline pictures all along the way down so we would be sure to know how to find our way back and where we parked our car. Better known a digital bread crumbs. Geri has developed a fear of forgetting. That is we would never find our car.

The city is perched right on the sea with houses built into the mountains above the city line. All the way to the top of the mountains are beautiful terraced gardens and vineyards. We walked for about an hour through the city and along the water taking in this lovely place. We stopped for a gelato which was delicious. We stopped at two different vendors who not only sold jewelry but they also made their own. Some as we watched. Geri purchased earrings, bracelets and a ring. They are in silver and quite nice. She is already wearing them. I think they look great on her.

The climb back up got our hearts pumping but we made it up and found our car without a hitch. The ride back to our hotel seemed shorter and our GPS took us a different route. We parked our car in the hotel lot and walked back towards the center of Portovenere wanting to check out where the boat launch was. We will see the other cities in this way, hopping on and off the boat. We elected not to hike between the cities but would certainly have considered this if we had more time. There were lots of groups with hiking poles who obviously were doing just that. We are looking forward to an Italian dinner tonight at our hotel.

Dinner at our hotel was really good. Next to us sat a young couple, Francesca and Luca. We talked with them the whole evening and they helped us to decide what to order. First we had farfalita, which was a dough sort of like a soft tortilla made out of chickpea flour and very delicious. Then we shared a pasta with seafood called pasta marinara but it had small tomatoes but no tomato sauce. We are in northern Italy. We also shared a local whole fish served with potatoes, tomatoes and olives. They boned it for us and willingly split both dishes into two portions. We also enjoyed a Chianti and I had a delicious café late.

It was a perfect day.