Europe, Episode 9: Cinque Terre, the agony and the ecstasy

The one place Bear wanted to go to in Italy was Cinque Terre.  We had seen the postcard perfect view of the warmly painted houses above and she wanted to recreate it for herself.  Roughly translating as "five lands", Cinque Terre is a gorgeous cluster of five villages located in the seaside hills of Northern Italy.

We were staying in the southernmost one, Riomaggiore and while we were in Nice, Bear's friend very kindly emailed us a set of suggested activities, including an easy half-day trail walk between the five villages.  "That sounds great!"  I told Bear.  After all, we love walking and we love scenery.

Yeah.  Bear's friend?  A massive fitness-buff-marathon-runner type.  The trails?  Anything but easy.

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We crossed the border from Nice into Italy on an early morning train.  Getting into Ventimiglia, our first Italian stop, was like going blind and waking up all at once.  For Rebecca, who speaks neither French nor Italian, the move between both countries was seamless.  But I went from being able to read signs and ask basic questions to feeling completely childlike and lost once more.  There was no doubt about the shift across borders, though; where the French talk in pinched, quiet vowels, the Italians we encountered... well, yelled.  At Ventimiglia, large, warm families boarded the train with voluminous voices and everyone, from oldish hausfraus to young girls dressed like they were in Jersey Shore, held loud, intense conversations.

After switching a couple of trains, we finally got into Riomaggiore and installed ourselves in a big, airy room over the main village street and its restaurants.  The view was instantly charming, but the noise didn't stop here either.  At all hours of the day, tourists shouted to each other across balconies.  Laughter floated up from the street and one morning, we started awake at the sound of glasses crashing violently under our window.  It was a little like living inside a very laidback beach party.

I greatly enjoyed Cinque though, it was touristy in a pleasant way.  It wasn't overly crowded and there were no touts or rip-offs, just the sense that there are people from so many different places around the world that you never exactly feel lost.

Our village flanks a dangerously sloping, cobbled street that runs like a vein from mountain to sea.  The walls of the buildings are painted warm, bright colours that glow in the sunlight.  We had our first meal in a trattoria where the playful, friendly proprietress taught us how to ask for the bill over some seriously piquant anchovies and Bear's first delicious, real Italian coffee.  I can still taste the smoky, fishy firmness of the lemon-laced fish, slippery with olive oil.

After lunch, we strolled down to the sea and watched boys leaping off rocks and kicking up geysers of salt spray.  When we felt sufficiently digested, we turned to each other.  "Shall we try walking through the towns?"

At the little tourist office, we grabbed a map and traced the softly undulating sea route to Manarola, one village down.  The woman at the counter saw us and shook her head.  "No.  Coast road is closed because of landslides.  You have to take the mountain road to Manarola.  Is a bit longer, maybe forty five minutes."

"Oh, is it difficult?"

She shrugged.  "You just follow the road up there and make a turn and you'll be at the start."

Forty five minutes didn't sound too bad, so we loaded up our camera gear (for the famous views, you know) and on a whim, thinking it might get hot, I changed into a pair of shorts.  The walk started off pleasantly enough on a real pavement and then suddenly, everything went to hell.  The path should really have been lined with guide ropes and traversed by sherpas.  It was at least one kilometre of fiendishly steep, dusty steps cut into the rock, sometimes with sheer drops on one side.

(This lock business is just too much.  Do we need to declare our love even on random fencing at three hundred feet above sea level?!  Fences collapse, people!)

I kept making dangerous, heartstopping slides on loose rocks and dust and Bear was obliged to walk in front of me so that I wouldn't kill myself.  Panting and swearing violently, we struggled upwards for about 20 minutes in the searing afternoon sun until the path briefly plateaued at a (surely ironically named) Picnic Spot.  Heaving as we tried to catch our breath, we threw up our hands and stared at each other, "Who the fuck wants to picnic here?"

Bear, a seasoned athlete who had been waiting to see Italy her whole life, yelled into the wind, "What the hell Italy?  I'm not sure how I feel about you now!"

 
The walk's difficulty was somehow emphasised by the fact that there were stunning views at every turn - craggy, sun-warmed cliffs dropping away into an endless, vast blue sea dotted with pale boats.  The water stretched into a perfectly-curved semi-circle that made me feel like I was looking at the edge of the world.  And we were fighting so hard to stay upright that each time we paused to appreciate the view, we were simultaneously gasping for breath and snapping ferociously.

There wasn't much time to pause, either, there was enough traffic going both ways that meant that we couldn't stop for long which was a pity because I wanted to capture everything - the flaming orange poppies by the roadside, a mysterious blue door, even the field mouse of glistening eye who burst suddenly into a little grass clearing.

We were swindled by signs announcing Manarola's presence at every turn and actually ended up struggling along the dusty hillside, clinging, at times, to staples and ropes in the hill wall, for about two hours.  Worst of all, we had forgotten to bring water.  

Actually, I like hiking but only when I know I'm going hiking in advance.  Had I not gone plodding consistently for a good six months before the trip, I'm pretty sure I would have been on my knees, begging Bear to leave me for dead.  Thankfully though, I just about managed.

Most amusingly, we kept running into people coming the other way.  We would meet each other's eyes, realise we were all dead tired and panting, and laugh together in sympathy. At one point, we met an elderly French couple and just after we had commiserated with each other, they were stopped by a Chinese lady just behind us.  The poor thing had also underestimated the walk and was togged out in ballet flats, a skirt and, unbelievably, a Chanel handbag.

"How much more?" she pleaded of them.

The husband said, "Fourty five minutes," in an encouraging voice while she let out a cry of anguish that almost toppled me.  As she floundered on dispiritedly, I heard the wife say to the husband in French, "Fourty five minutes?  I thought it was much longer than that!" and I had to stop and walking and lean on the hillside because I was howling with laughter.

At the highest point of the climb, we were looking down into the valley of Manarola and realising how much further we had to go.  Even in my despair though, I had to admit that it was gorgeous. 

Finally, finally we hit pavement once more and staggered down the winding streets into the town.  

My tiredness was assuaged by the picturesque lemon trees, the sight of elderly people playing cards by the sea and at long last, the ice cold bottle of sparkling Primavera water we inhaled after collapsing into the nearest cafe.

Rebecca had a coffee, of course, and we passed a very amusing hour seated across from the gap in the wall where the mountain trail ended.  It was gratifying to watch dusty, dishevelled people burst out into the street, realise their ordeal was at an end and triumphantly high-five and hug each other just as we had done earlier.

"We can go back again that way you know," Bear teased me, her face deadpan.

"Oh of course," I said, trying to sound nonchalant.  "That little climb?  Please, I can totally do it again."

Eventually, we were fortified enough to explore the village.  We scrambled down to the seaside just as the sun started its long descent and found ourselves face-to-face with Cinque Terre's most famous postcard view.

(Earlier, we'd asked a man in a shop to recommend a good time to take the picture.  He smiled sagely, pointed in the direction of the sea and said, "The moment is now".  The phrase became our slogan for the rest of the trip and we still bark it at each other today.)

While Bear set her tripod up, I walked up and down the along the railing, taking pictures of people and birds lounging on the rocks.  At one point, what looked like a pair of geese flew low over the water and I caught a couple of pictures of them before they completely disappeared.

While waiting for the sun to truly set, we explored a random courtyard and found our very attractive waitress from earlier that afternoon playing with a child.  The girl was fascinated by a compass tiled into the ground that pointed out the distances to famous cities all round the world.

Eventually, as the air cooled, we went back to the railing and sat down at the edge of the sea, content to watch bathers climbing and leaping off the rocks.

When everyone started packing up to go home, we looked for a restaurant and rewarded ourselves for the climb with a fantastic seafood platter spilling over with tender calamari, fish and sweetly charred octopus. 

As we washed it down with a dessert of biscotti dipped in sciacchetrá, Italian sweet wine, Bear leaned back and said to me decisively, "I think I love Italy".  

I grinned at her, having made my peace with the terrain.  "Me too."

"Great.  Shall we do the rest of the villages tomorrow?"

"And this time we take the coast road?  Like normal people?"

"Perfecto."

And then, we finished our meal, paid up and like two intrepid explorers with a taste for challenge and adventure, we took the train right back home.

Hobonichi wisdom

"Everything I've seen and heard in my life.

The things I've done.  The people I've met.

I'm now going over it all, counting it up.

That's what ageing is all about."

                                                      -- "The Silver Words of Safety Match

I am so lucky.

I live in a world where people are mostly kind; where friends and family are always thoughtful, always giving and always have my back.  In my part of town, we always love and are loved in return, even when we least expect it.  

This year, I had the privilege of spending time with all those I love and then some.  This Christmas, friends gave me the heavens and earth and hope and I stood, in the middle of the night, too stunned by gratitude to weep.  This New Year, my cup runneth over.  

Thank you, Universe, for showing me the peace that's been there waiting all along. 

Happy Holidays, everyone. 

Cactus Tree

"You know, I think if I were so inclined, I would easily be a junkie," I tell my friend, Kit, over dinner.

"Me too!"  His eyes widen in agreement and I know he understands.  We're both one kind of addict anyway.  Worriers, chewing obsessively over the same thought night and day.  Kit's learned to compartmentalise but I'm not as intelligent.  

I have to make do and since I can't be a user, I find other manias to build my life around.  Unfortunately, unlike drugs, they don't always come in steady or reliable supply.  Nothing gold can stay, I found myself thinking on my twenty-minute walk to work today, as the smell of newly-laid tar and drying cement steamed up around me, and I felt an indelible sadness.  

After my ex well and truly taught me how not to cling to people, I started to cling to things thinking that they couldn't possibly ever mean as much.  Except, it turns out, they do.  And things, too, change and end and maybe I'm just too worn out for one more set of goodbyes.   

In recent weeks, I'd been up late at night playing a game in which one tries to memorise all the countries in the world.  Then I moved on to memorising all their capitals.  Each round, after the timer runs out, I find myself reaching to restart it, to get one more hit of soothing routine.  During the day, I carry the names in my mouth and head to stave off withdrawal: Honiara, Belmopan, Tegucigalpa, Chisinau.  I repeat mnemonics and create mental imagery and tell my friends and cram my attention with lists and lists of places because one who feels so full couldn't possibly also feel hollow.  

I'll be done with it eventually.  But you know what they say.  Once an addict, always an addict.

And lying in bed in the dark, I recite the names of capitals over and over again, just as if they were prayers.

Europe, Episode 8: Nice, further inland

Apart from walking the beach at Nice, Bear and I spent many hours getting lost in a maze of market streets and squares.  Under the Mediterranean sun, the buildings were more garish than those in Avignon, bolder reds and oranges and sometimes with ridiculous trompe l'oeil cornices.

Over two afternoons, we walked beneath buildings frilled and painted like gaudy cakes and explored shops crammed with herbs and salts and soaps.  The streets, at time cobbled and sharply sloping, thronged with people sitting on folding chairs and drinking glutinous wine. 

Of course, we celebrated the discovery of a chocolate shop by noshing on truffles for tea and Bear ordered a glistening dôme noir filled with layers of untold vanilla, dark chocolate and biscuit-y glory.  As I savoured a richly-melting sea salt caramel, Rebecca discovered that her preferred coffee in France (where she had previously been receiving watery crap that she reviled) was a sufficiently strong baby café crème.

For breakfast, we devoured full sets of flaky pain au chocolate, bread, jam, omelette and what, in my eyes, is the ultimate morning luxury: both coffee and orange juice.  Thus satisfied, we took our time wandering through the narrow alleys and people watching.

For me, the most fascinating part of the walk was emerging into a tightly-packed market square redolent with the heady odour of wet feathers and sun-warmed fish.

The air was thick with seagulls, raucously flapping and fighting over fish guts and splattering droppings over everything.  I had never met such big gulls before, and Bear and I stood there for nearly an hour switching between fascinated staring and horrified ducking and running.  (I am particularly fond of the last seagull photo above - the bird looks like he has just said goodbye to his parents and is setting off to find his fortune with an aspiring look on his face.)

Above the clamour and cobblestones slick with fish juice, a man warmed his arms in the sunshine.

When a seagull nearly flapped into our faces, we decided it was time to move on and plunged back into the fray.

Rebecca and I found this woman so attractive that after hiding behind a pillar and watching her argue with someone for ten minutes, we finally plucked up the courage to ask if we could take her photo and she sheepishly agreed.  (As Bear says, people in the south of any place are very nice.  They usually said yes to us taking photos after making jokes about having to put on make up.)

Having walked through a park filled with romping children, we decided that it was time for yet another meal and that we would retrace our steps to a restaurant that we had found selling oysters earlier that day.

Oysters were an acquired taste for me but I eventually grew to love them and I remembered greatly enjoying heaps of shellfish in large melamine crucibles on top of metal tripods with my mother in Cannes.  The restaurant in Nice served seafood in a similar fashion and I had subconsciously latched onto the idea of having dinner there.  Unfortunately, we had walked so many kilometres that we were completely lost and we were about to give up on the idea when we turned a serendipitous corner and ended up smack in the middle of hundred of diners enjoying alfresco seafood feasts.

Right then and there, I sat down and had one of the best meals I have ever had in Europe, or indeed, in my life.  While Rebecca had prawns and fries, I ate six gigantic oysters that were so insanely fresh and cold that I felt like I was smoking some kind of sea-flavoured crack.  I slowly savoured each dripping, savoury, piquant one, knowing that it would be some time before I had access to such good oysters again.

Then, groaning at our fullness and good fortune, we took a long, slow walk back.

When I look at pictures of us from that time, I see two very happy, healthy campers.  In hindsight, I realise now that I really appreciated the two days of just slow-walking and eating.  We emerged well-rested, well-fed and well-prepared for what essentially became ten days of stair climbing in thirty-five degree Italy.

Most amusing of all, my diary entry for the day reads: "Bear and I have managed not to kill each other yet."

Well, it is a city called Nice after all.