The Scenic Route to Istanbul: Vernazza

After our very steep 5 miler yesterday Rachel was in need of a day off doing a less athletic pastime by the van.

I very much wanted to visit another of the Cinque Terre villages, Vernazza, which is just 3 miles along the coast. The lady who owns the sosta said it would be better to go up into the hills and drop down to the village, it would be prettier and save me the 7.50 euros of the coastal path. I took her advice and armed with the sketchiest of maps set off on the 2 mile climb up to the rolling mist. Not so much gorillas in the mist, more of an ape with his head in the clouds. The forecast was that we might get a thunderstorm later, but I thought that it could be a refreshing reprieve from what was getting a tad toasty when the sun broke through. After an hour or so’s walking, I commenced the descent via Madonna di Reggio church, which had a self service restaurant attached to the rear. Yes, it had a sign to say ‘self service restaurant’, but I doubt you, and certainly not I, have ever seen anything quite like this before. Food of all description was on offer as well as beer, a coffee machine and a host of things to choose from but no staff, no prices, an honesty box and a book for comments. I went for a bottle of water and an apple and duly dropped my donation in the box, made a thankful comment in the book and continued on my trek downhill. I passed one fellow walker coming uphill and caught two other walkers up who happened to be French. We had decent craic, in English of course, before I scooted off ahead in the style of an aged fell runner, on the downhills only of course.

It took 2¼ hours to reach Vernazza, which was rammed with tourists, they get everywhere you know! Maybe it wasn’t quite as idyllic as the photo-shopped pictures you see on the internet, but it is still a charming, if slightly ‘Bowness-on-Windermere-esque’.

I was pretty much cream crackered by now having done some serious (in my state of unhealthiness) exercise. So to hell with the expense, here’s 7.50 euros for the privilege of taking the more direct route back. What a contrast from my walk to Vernazza! Imagine Cat Bells on a sunny bank holiday weekend and you get the picture. I have no idea how many people I must have seen on the walk back to Monterosso but it was in the hundreds, and of all nationalities. As the path was barely wide enough for two people to pass, there was much ‘giving way’, and by the time I’d racked up an hour of this I had developed a routine of “thank you, grazie, gracias, merci, danke” which covered most.

On arriving back at Monterosso, I just had the two mile uphill walk back to the sosta. The thunder and lightning started and by the time I was half a mile from base camp the heavens opened, and yes it was refreshing!

Later in the day whilst the sun was still in full flow, I paid our host for our 2 night stay, our planned departure to deepest Tuscany due sometime tomorrow morning. Aren’t Italians such friendly people? The half bottle of red they had remaining was kindly given to us and dare I say, much better quality than the stuff we have become used to!