Vernazza… and as usual, long-winded ramblings - August 4, 2010

Senne's Summary: We took the train to Vernazza (the fourth village from us) and then hiked all the way back. It was pretty strenuous (for Lisa).

Tuesday August 3, 2010

Today we just kind of hung out and relaxed (AKA NO hiking 😉 ) Read a little, relaxed  a little, did some laundry, wrote postcards, lost to Steve in cards over and over and over 🙁 , drank a little wine, and had a yummy take-away dinner. All in all a very relaxing day!

Wednesday August 4, 2010

This morning we went off on a tangent from the regular "milk product/ding dong" breakfast and had what I think is supposed to be almond cake. It was delicious! Kind of like a muffin (but really cake 😀). We also had more yummy nectarines and some blueberries. The fruit here is quite tasty! We had to fuel up for our long hike back from Vernazza.

We took the train from Riomaggiore to Vernazza. The train was about 20 minutes late (and apparently is almost always late) so we’ll need to factor that in when we get our tickets on to Venice (which the lady at the train station said we can not get here, haven’t quite figured out where to get them yet...).

For the first time today since we’ve arrived in Europe, someone actually checked our train tickets! So it does happen… we even saw someone getting a ticket for not having one… that would never happen to me (AKA rule-follower).

We watched how they opened the door at the stop before ours, and the door opened first try when we got to Vernazza! Yes!

We wandered around Vernazza a bit. It seems very similar to the other towns… maybe a bit bigger and touristier, and it has a beach (WITH REAL SAND). 

Beach area in Vernazza

We checked out the main street, the harbour, Castillo Doria (I have deduced that Castillo in Italian probably means fort, not castle.) and watched the people at the beach. I was quite enthralled with this little guy who wore nothing but a knitted cap while he played on the beach (we’re guessing he was about 1 year old). Very cute, but curious… why the knitted cap?!?

The water was quite rough today. We saw the ferry come into Vernazza and it was bobbing up and down something serious! Reminded me to check the water before deciding whether to take the ferry to Monterosso. I definitely would have “fed the fish” if I was on that boat! Some of the teenagers were playing in the water right by the edge where the ferry comes in. If a wave hit them just right it would actually lift them up onto the harbour wall (maybe 12 feet?!).

Crazy teenagers playing in the rough sea!

On the hike back we came across this Castillo, and explored inside. These are the steps up!

Once we finished exploring we decided to head on the hike from Vernazza back to Riomaggiore. The hike between Vernazza and Corniglia (the first village you get to) is about 4 km. The hike started with approximately 57 million steps (okay, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration)… not the regular “stair” kind of steps but the irregular built out of the side of a mountain stone” steps. Some of them were quite high, and I was quickly out of breath (I think it goes without saying that Steve was fine, and very patiently waited while I took water breaks). I was surprised to see that when we reached the highest point of the hike we were almost to the top of the hill/mountain… the other two hikes we did stayed mostly at the lower level of the villages.

Looking back towards Vernazza

The views were outstanding. It was quite hot today, and it didn’t take long before I had peeled off my shirt (don’t worry, had my bathing suit top on, I’m pretty sure topless hiking is not the custom here…). We saw a lot of women who had done the same (bathing suit or not!). It was smoking hot!

Steve was disappointed because the camera ran out of power before we left Vernazza (forgot to charge it…oops) and the views were simply beautiful (bella vista?). He plans to come back and do the hike again and take pictures (I’m not doing that hike again… it was seriously hard for me!). We both enjoyed the hike immensely. Although I was huffing and puffing I was still able to appreciate the breath-taking scenery. (Get it… breath-taking … hee hee)

A glimpse of the path you travel on, on the way from Vernazza to Corniglia.

When we arrived in Corniglia we stopped for some lunch (same yummy sandwiches as the other day), and then decided we’d go to the beach we went to the other day between Corniglia and Manarola.

When we got there we discovered that the water was pretty rough and people were on the beach but few were in the water. Since I'm a better floater than swimmer, we decided to keep walking and check out the other beaches along the way. It was also too rough in Manarola, so we had a little Gelato to help cool us off 😀

All in all it was a great hike. I felt much better when it was over 😌

Just a side note that our hostess Lorenza is so sweet that she brought us tomatoes and basil from her garden tonight. They were delicious. (Parents you don’t need to worry; we are eating a few healthy things with our cake and ice cream!)