“………We get to the hotel after midnight and it is indeed in a seedy part of the city. A scruffy man behind the front desk wants to see our passports then asks for €137,00 Cash for the night, WITHOUT us our seeing the room. We are, we feel at a distinct disadvantage, but possibly not in a position to argue. With no cash on us we take the luggage up to the room, and before we even get inside we see that the door to our night’s accommodations has been forcibly opened at some point. It closes and locks but it’s been badly bruised and battered. A strip of wood is missing off one side. We look at each other and our faces reflect each other’s thoughts. What the hell are we in for?………..”
Day Seven – 21st. September – Wednesday – My sister Sandra and I depart Bosco Gurin, Switzerland, late morning and soon arrive in Cevio where we change buses to Locarno. Upon arrival we head to the train station. Sandra purchases tickets to the Cinque Terra while I look after our luggage. (This has been a pattern for us, and it’s one of the true advantages of travelling with a companion. You can seperate to do individual things when you have luggage with you.) There are four train changes via Milan to our destinantion on the Italian Riviera but we have an hour and a half to kill so lunch is at a pub in Locarno Switzerland twenty metres from the bus stop and here we use our last Swiss Francs. Sandra has an Italian Chorizo Risotto. Delicious. I order Prosciutto Pizze and it is as amazing as the Italian pizza I remember eating when I was last in fabulous Italy. But what else should we expect so close to the border? As we are travelling on public transport for the rest of the day, we then order wine. Delightful.
The trains in Italy are modern and comfortable and the views outside the carriage on this next leg once we are underway are glorious as we skirt the Italian lakes. Stunning. The colour of the water in the lakes today is a rich turquoise blue and the clarity, even from a distance, seems clear. The Italian Lakes are a Mecca for the rich and famous, and nestling around the patchwork of these spectacular watercourses are colourful Italian houses and villas which appear to descend from the higher elevations down the lake’s steep adjoining slopes starting with a trickle, but by the water’s edge, block after block of prime real estate with spectacular water frontage muscles their way tightly in next to each other in a flood. It is all……….simply……..Beautiful!!
We arrive late afternoon in central Milan at the railway station and ask for directions to the Platform where we are to board our next train, the train to Genova. We are at this point not confident we have the right train as the time frames don’t mesh. We are hoping we’ve got it right as we are due to arrive at Vernazza at 9:02 pm and we do not have a booking at a hotel there. We ask a conductor just to be certain, then show him our tickets. He takes us to another platform and points out a train.
6:20 pm – I have a sinking suspicion we are on the wrong train. I watch the display screen at the end of the carriage for the next stop. It says Stresa but that doesn’t ring a bell. I read Lucerne and Geneva further down the board as stops where this train is headed and I know both places are in Switzerland. Having just come from Switzerland I think we are headed back there via a different route so I tell Sandra and she confirms my suspicions by checking with a conductor on board. Yes we are on the wrong train.
It’s only two minutes to Stresa our first stop on this train ride so we quickly gather our things and depart the train moments later. Across to the opposite platform and less than five minutes later we are on board the next train from Stresa back to Milan. But we were on a fast train, and around an hour into the journey when we realised. So it is very, very late when we arrive back in Milan. And yes you guessed it, the only time a conductor has checked our tickets all day, and he checks them on the train back to Milan. Either the conductor is blind or was just indifferent as he marked the Locarno to Milan tickets and kept walking. Did he even look? Relief. We decide to stay in Milan overnight and depart for Vernazza tomorrow as it’s just too late to be heading on when we don’t have our night’s accommodation booked.
We arrive safely in Milan but it is fashion week here and we soon find we are unable to find a room for an impromptu overnight stay. We walk across to a rather glamourous hotel, The Michelangelo, close to the station, and with no rooms available there, while I wait in the lobby with our luggage, Sandra hot foots it and does a circuit around the city block one direction looking for a room. It is a hotel district. No luck after half an hour so she comes back to give me a progress report then sets off in the other direction. Meantime waiting waiting at the hotel the bell hop man aids me with the suitcases and puts them to one side of the lobby out of the path of all foot traffic where there are huge sofas. He beckons me to sit. He was chilled. The first northern Italian working in customer service I have met this trip who has been thus far.
Sandra returns after another half hour. She has secured a room, (a hotel manager has rung around for her) and it is “supposedly” the only room left in Milan. But we soon learn it is in a seedy part of Milan, or prostitute street as we both start loosely calling it by the time we get there because of the area it’s in, and the local activity. We catch a taxi out front of the Michelangelo Hotel and I tip the bell hop guy helping with the suitcases €10,00 for simply being kind. It had been a pleasant wait.
We get to the two star hotel just before midnight and it is indeed in a seedy part of the city. A scruffy man behind the front desk wants to see our passports then asks for €137,00 Cash for the night, WITHOUT us our seeing the room. We are, we feel, at a distinct disadvantage but possibly not in a position to argue. With no cash on us we take the luggage up to the room, and before we even get inside we see that the door to our night’s accommodations has been forcibly opened at some point. It closes and locks but it’s been badly bruised and battered. A strip of wood is missing off one side. We look at each other and our faces reflect each other’s thoughts. What the hell are we in for?…..we both think.
We enter. The room surprises us as it seems ok, it’s certainly tidy, not high class accommodation, yet clean and comfortable. So we leave our bags piled high on one bed, lock the door behind us and then set off on foot to the nearest ATM to get money, hoping our luggage is still there upon our return. We find an ATM about a block away in a dark alcove and it seems to take an extraordinary amount of time with the card repeatedly ejecting but finally we have €250,00. Honestly, I was expecting to be mugged next to the ATM as the graffiti plastered poorly lit street set in an atmosphere of sombre darkness, was frequented by more than a few disreputable types lingering along the pavements.
A vending machine yields some water bottles closer to the two star hotel then Sandra bravely goes across the street to get a Margherita Pizza at a tiny takeaway straight across from our digs. I go up to the room hoping everything is still there but Sandra is in a distressed state by the time she returns to the room a short time later, pizza in hand. Several men had tried to pick her up and one even happily volunteered to her the information they had seen us arrive. “I’ll walk you across the street”. “NO. THANK. YOU.” And after we eat and before we crash in our beds, we pile our suitcases on top of each other high against the flimsily locked door in a feeble effort to protect ourselves. At this point we are simply hoping we are not raped or murdered in our beds.
Day Eight – 22nd. September – Thursday – We are alive!
We pack and organise our suitcases so we can take a smaller bag onto Vernazza as we plan to book in and leave the larger suitcases at the four and a half star Michelangelo Hotel. We walk to the Michelangelo on foot this morning. It’s about four blocks. When we get there we book a room and pay for it in the lobby online via their web site for Sunday night the 25th. September, our last night in Italy after we return from the Cinque Terra. We check in the suitcases we are not taking and then walk across to the station about one hundred metres away. The bell hop guy is working. I smile and say hello and I think “gee he works long hours did he even go to bed?”
We buy breakfast then successfully make our way to the Genova train waiting on platform 22 after passing through a main check point staffed by several police doing a check of tickets. I wait a minute or two for the line to be busy then we join the line of people speeding through. I hold the tickets with thumb over the actual date so we might get through without our tickets being checked too closely. We had been told we had to purchase fresh tickets from the vending machines by a station staff member when we asked about using the ones from yesterday as we’d missed the train and they were unused, so we are hoping our luck holds and the tickets from yesterday aren’t checked too closely today on the two trains we are to travel on this afternoon. So far so good.
We arrive in Genova and successfully find the train to Vernazza, then it’s onto the Cinque Terra. We change to the “Green Train” for the last few kilometres and amid hustle and bustle and tourists exiting en masse, after a short ten minute trek, we disemark. I buy a few postcards from a souvenir shop then it’s down into the tiny village on foot. A short distance. I am instantly reminded of Amalfi, quaint twisting winding cobbled streets, tall Italian heritage architecture, beautiful peach and yellow walls with dark emerald green shutters. This village is old, Italian, vibrant and yet refreshingly en vogue.
There are people everywhere; tourists, locals, and workers. We pass shops and their wares spilling outside onto the pavement. Restaurants with their culinary delights, relaxation, shopping and socialising are key here. We need accommodation so we chat to some Canadians who have been here a day then Sandra finds an accommodation centre based in a tiny office off to the side of the main thoroughfare. We have several choices but decide on three nights, two flights of stairs up, in a room across the street. It is spacious, clean, airy and €120,00 a night.
Dinner tonight after a shower and change is in a gorgeous outdoor restaurant. And the entire populace in the village seemingly heads out with us to dine in the quaint restaurants and nooks lining the cobbled streets. There are a dozen outdoor open air cafes under umbrellas. Seafood Salad for Sandra, Grilled Seafood for me. A bottle of Moscato. Bread and Olive Oil. Simple, but delicious fare. It’s €70,00 for the meals and wine and worth every Euro. Fresh Italian gelato, salted caramel and pistachio, wild berry and vanilla, at a shop on the trek back is a must.
Day Nine – 23rd. September – Friday – It is warm here, and the night is spent with a fan on, gently moving the air coming in through the open shutters of our apartment which opens onto an open air private court. Sandra’s up early, walking around the port area. I take my time rising. We meet up at 10:00 am and catch a shuttle ferry from Vernazza for Riomaggiore, one of the five tiny villages which hug the cliffs of the Italian Riviera. The air is salt fresh and thick, humid even, and still textured with the warmth of the previous day’s temperatures. The boat is modern, sleek and comfortable and it takes a short forty minutes to reach our destination. The scenery is bewitching. An overcast grey blue sky lends the deep blue of the Mediterranean a mystical quality and the coastline is stunning with bold rises and falls of rock, and the tiny clusters of houses that form the villages of Coniglia and Manarola, perched on the landscapes slopes, quickly slip by.
The line of tourists waiting to board our boat at Riomaggiore is long and snakes its way up the steep steps which lead to the boat dock. We disembark and head upwards then along following solid stone steps that have been worn down in the centres by the thousands of visitors that have journeyed here before us. The beach is a mere handkerchief sized cove, only a few metres wide and the buildings, predominately peach, yellow and tangerine, rise to four stories and are tightly pressed together either side of the cobbled street. Again dark emerald shutters completes the picture.
It is a slow pace here. The muffled sounds of Italian and other foreign languages is everywhere. I am sitting on a seat in the main thoroughfare capturing images to remember. An elderly Italian woman is not a metre away enjoying a lengthy conversation with a friend. They are simply passing time. Tourists are ambling by, there is no rush, everyone today seems to have ample opportunity to absorb their surroundings. Sandra is shopping. The smells of fresh cooked food permeates the air and I realise it is late morning, time for breakfast. I find an outdoor restaurant and enjoy an omelette with capsicum, mozzarella cheese and zucchini. And then a cappuccino. Italian coffee really is the best.
Riomaggiore has a huge line of visitors queuing to depart the village via the ferry. My sister and I agreed that a 12:30 pm departure would be best to go to the next village along, Portovenere, so without having met up with Sandra, I queue and am ushered aboard with the crowd after people arriving have disembarked. Too soon I realise it’s the ferry heading the other direction, and I am on my own as I’ve now lost track of my sister, so I hop off at Manarola and wander the town before attempting to figure out the next ferry time departure for Portovenere, which is in the opposite direction. Every village is different, yet every village is special, historic and a mish mash of steps and winding thoroughfares taking you to a delightful mix of stunning shops and fabulous eateries.
Manarola has no beach. Instead the beautiful people with beautiful bodies make their way along a series of beautful rocks to a not so beautiful stone platform with steps that lead down into the beautiful water. It is the equivalent of a swimming pool but in the sea. There are buoys holding nets in place, so it is safe from sharks and the water is clear, almost pristine. You can see several metres into it to the rocky sea floor below.
I find a nice spot in the shade to sit away from the bustle and it is truly quiet here with only the sounds of water lapping. There’s a gentle breeze. It is a small peace of heaven. A place to sit and just be. I catch up with Sandra just as I’m about to board the ferry to Portovenere at 3:00 pm. She was arriving at Manarola on the ferry I am hoping to depart on. She had missed the ferry to Portovenere and had stayed on at Riomaggiore for lunch. So she retraces her footsteps, sailing with me, down the coast past Riomaggiore to Portovenere. The lovely village of Portovenere is sited on more comfortable gradients and we enjoy an hour’s shopping before catching the sunset ferry back to Vernazza at 5:00pm. Portovenere is really pretty, so we decide we will come back tomorrow to spend a few more hours wandering and maybe pick up an island boat tour.
The ferry we catch at Portovenere takes us back to Vernazza and the square and restaurant where we sit is so crowded we have dinner next to two young girls, Americans. We enjoy two bottles of wine, a red and a white, olive oil and bread, tomato bocconcini with basil drizzled in more olive oil, some pasta and clam soup. It is a lovely meal sitting in the open piazza in balmy autumn Italian weather. The American girls are interesting dinner company and like most Americans I find, want to discuss politics, then all too soon it’s goodbye and we head off. We call in at the Gelato shop on the way home. I’m very much looking forward to tomorrow.
Day Ten – 24th. September – Saturday – Slow start today but we are on the ferry now at 11:45 am heading for Portovenere and are looking forward to an easy afternoon strolling the streets. Many visitors to the Cinque Terra walk the hilltops between the villages. But our aim on this trip is to fully explore and enjoy the towns, shop, and simply cruise the Mediteranean.
The ferry drops us at the port at Portovenere and the many tourists that have discovered this gem of a town are starting to flock here in earnest as we arrive. Boat after boat deposits visitors at this popular tourist destination. We stroll along the waterfront and enjoy the sights then pick a seaside outdoor cafe for lunch. It is leisurely, pleasant and entirely Italian enjoying good food and wine, sitting in an outdoor cafe, fronting the Mediterranean, watching the people pass by. We then wander the streets. The shops at Portovenere are full of every conceivable item the tourist might want, and quite a few items the tourist doesn’t need, and it is alot of fun browsing the wares. You can hardly say there’s a great beach at Portovenere, the gritty dark sand stretches a mere fifty to one hundred metres. But there are masses of yachts, and countless moorings along the stone walls where smaller boats may be tied up.
I head up to a church on a rise a little way further along on my own, the church of St. Peter which is thought to have been built between 1256 and 1277 and was consecrated in 1198 AD. Inside it is not lavishly adorned nor ornate, but beautiful in its own way with simple striped patterns created from using grey then lighter coloured brick shaped stones. The church sits on a rocky outcrop on the farthermost point along the port frontage to Portovenere. It is the first building you see before the town comes into view as you approach from the sea.
My sister and I meet at the ferry pick up point at 3:00 pm and enjoy a leisurely 45 minute cruise complete with audio talk in Italian around the three nearby islands Palmaria, I. Tino and I. Tinetto. We do not understand a word, but it is truly theraputic lisening to the guide’s melodious voice and genuine passion for his piece of paradise.
At 5:00 pm we depart for Vernazza but decide en route to head to Monterosso the only port apart from Coniglia we’ve skipped along the Cinque Terra. I’m surprised when we arrive in Monterosso. It is perhaps busier than the other four villages as it is very people friendly with its large expanses of level or slight elevation rather than the dramatic rises and falls of land in most of the other ports. There is fabulous shopping in Monterosso too and we decide the moment we arrive to have dinner here at a seafood restaurant then catch the Green Train back to Vernazza later.
We find a great restaurant and Sandra orders Seafood Antipasta. She is served a fabulous meal comprising no less than ten different dishes. Stuffed anchovies, a stuffed mussel, king prawns with aioli, snails, pickled sardines, white fish, pickled anchovies, sundried tomatoes with sardines, a prosciutto wrapped prawn, shrimps and legumes. A banquet. And it costs a meagre €20,00. A fresh green salad ties it together nicely. I enjoy Spaghetti Ciak or spaghetti with clams and mussels for €14,00. Eating authentic pasta in Italy, the home of great pasta, it is delicious.
We walk to the station about half a kilometre away and wait twenty minutes for the “Green Train” to pick us up and take us back to Vernazza. Gelato at our favourite haunt on the way back to our apartment winds up our final day in this exquisite part of Italy, and we head back for a reasonably early night.
Day Eleven – 25th. September – Sunday – Lazy morning this morning packing and getting ready to leave Vernazza. I buy a different breakfast this morning. A generous slice of a delicious cheese, a huge but thin single slice of ham, a long bakery fresh panini bread roll, and some fruit; a sun ripened peach, a nectarine and banana. The leftovers will do us for lunch as we’ll be on the train heading back to Milan by then. A take away cappuccino, which was only the best of Italian coffee as per usual, and I sit on the stone steps in the little piazza near the door of our accommodation to enjoy my impromptu picnic comprising true rustic Italian fare.
Sandra is walking to the castle at the cliff top near the Port area in Vernazza. I stay with our luggage as we’ve checked out and write postcards whilst munching on my breakfast. It is balmy and warm and there’s a light breeze. People are ambling by in both directions. The general consensus seems to be panini rolls or pizze eaten as you walk along for breakfast this morning. I see only a few people in the restaurants and cafes which are mostly lunch and dinner time eateries here.
We are both sad to be leaving. I have particularly enjoyed the many sea cruises and strolling the streets of the villages that make up the Cinque Terra. Many that visit here however undertake the cliff walks and either ferry hop or take the Green Train to return to their accommodations at night. But I love the sea and have really revelled sailing from Italian villiage to Italian village on the cusp of the beautiful blue Mediteranean.
We head to the train station, purchase tickets and the train arrives promptly for a change, at 12:30 pm. We board and are to head to Levanto then are to change trains, but when we arrive at Levanto I can’t get the door open. There are four people wishing to disembark. We all turn and rush the other end of the carriage with our bags, two get off but the other two are left on the carriage as the train pulls away. We simply weren’t quick enough getting to the door even though we literally sped through the carriage.
We are on this train til at least the next station where we think we’ll have to disembark then back track. We arrive at the next station and promptly get off. There’s a steward, we ask, he said get back on the train and get off at its final destination in five stops time at La Spezia. We quickly get back on then head on further, our destiny now in the hands of an irritable train steward who could barely grant us the one minute of his precious conversation time it took to tell us what to do. I guess he had a train to flag on.
I speak to a lady on the train who is concerned the train is too slow. She opens the window and strings fast sentences together in Italian at the next stop and I catch the word Milano. I know she’s asking a question. When she finishes and draws her head back into the carriage I ask, do you speak English? Are you going to Milano? She gesticulated she doesn’t speak English but nods and says in Italian she’s going to Milano. I ask and use my own form of sign language can I follow you? She agrees yes and when the train pulls in at La Spezia she quickly hops off, then turns and checks to see if we are following. She’s moving quickly. We are late to be catching the next train I realise. The train we were on was running eight minutes late by the time we arrived in La Spezia.
Down the stairs then around the next corner, up the next stairwell then thirty seconds later the Milano train pulls in and we board. I don’t know if we arrived before the other train we were originally on or not but we were only out of a moving train no more than five minutes between the stuff up and getting on a train that would get us to our destination, so in all, not a bad day. It was a comfortable ride in air conditioned carriage for the three plus hours from La Spezia although we had to trek through a dozen carriages to find an empty seat. I believe we were sitting in first class when the conductor came by. But he didn’t seem to mind, every other carriage had been chock-a-block. And we were very glad we bought tickets today as two conductors on this final leg checked our tickets twice.
We arrive in Milan at 3:50 pm. We walk across to the Michelangelo Hotel, pick up our larger suitcases and re pack ready for tomorrow then walk across to the railway station a hundred metres away to shop a little, and hunt and gather dinner. An early night as we head to London tomorrow.
Day Twelve – 26th. September – Monday – 9:45 am – A leisurely breakfast for us this morning at the Michelangelo Hotel in Milan. Sandra is off shopping now however, shoes and other couture in the railway shopping centre complex that we saw last night that have her name on them, as I look after our hand luggage and enjoy a second cappuccino. Well, the waitress insisted didn’t she? Besides, sitting in the hotel lobby across from at least a dozen young male models exiting Milan after fashion week, is not a difficult chore.
As I sit here I can’t help but think that it’s funny sometimes how the challenges are what makes a holiday extra special. Certainly our naive foray into the use of Italian Public Transport and the humour we found in the sometimes dire situations on this leg of the trip are what made it more than memorable. And from personal experience I can confirm there is simply nothing like exhaustion and fear to add to the flavour of eating a fabulous authentic Italian pizza in the middle of the night from its box sitting on the floor in a seedy Milan district two star hotel. Or feeling that it is wonderful to be alive after waking to find we’d slept really well and had actually been unaccosted in that same hotel that had screamed “be wary” from the moment we had stepped across its threshold. Or the relief felt when I successfully used sign language to extricate ourselves from a train ride that was taking us where we no longer wished to go when I don’t speak Italian. More importantly however, what I will perhaps remember best about the Cinque Terra is its stunning architecture and culture, fabulous shopping and the quaint walkways of the tiny villages. Its people, amazing food and perfect, idyllic weather whilst both wandering the cobbled streets of its villages and sailing between its ports on the blue waters of the Mediteranean. It’s been a short visit this time Italy, but it’s been wonderful!
We catch the shuttle bus from Milano Centrale to Linate Airport at 11:30 am and it is €5 each for 25 – 50 minute drive depending upon traffic. I ask for one ticket and find the correct coinage but the bus driver obviously doesn’t want coins he insists two tickets €10 and is starting to get short with us, it’s been less than twenty seconds dealing with him. So we are served another hefty dose of Northern Italian attitude with our tickets then a €10 note is exchanged for two tickets. Christian, my southern Italian born tour guide from my last Italian tour was right, some of the northern Italians working in public transport have a lot to learn about customer service skills.
In the air and on the way to London by 4:05 pm. No inflight movies so I’m looking at the iPad for my entertainment. I’m glad I packed the headphones but I soon realise I deleted my fav movies Vikings and Outlander. Oh well. Diana Gabaldon’s novels come to the rescue with iBooks. I’m looking forward to England, Scotland and Wales, the next leg on my Around The World Odessey as they’ve been on my list of must visit’s for years.
Go to https://www.travelessae.com.au/part-three-a-england-scotland-and-wales to read about the next leg of my trip Around the World in Seventy Five Days.