Hello Italian Riviera...

May 22, 2010

Our breakfast consisted of using up whatever was left in our mini fridge, which was an odd assortment of cheeses, yogurt, fruits, vegetables, and juice.  And from the tiny freezer, some store-bought gelato that in the stratification of gelatos, must honestly be filed as lower class…but the kids still didn’t complain about gelato for breakfast! 

Famous wild boar statue...rub his nose for good luck!

 We spent the morning cleaning up and finishing our packing (I use the pronoun “we” very loosely here), and then headed out to do a few last errands.  Reyna desperately wanted to go back to find the vendor selling a Firenze (aka Florence) t-shirt featuring a blue-eyed cat wearing a Firenze t-shirt.  Umm… I know.  But slightly cuter than it sounds.  I had vetoed the purchase a few days before (hoping she’d forget) but she was now determined and willing to spend her own money, so I caved.  Regan was agenda-free, but always on the hunt for anything she surely couldn’t live without.  Florence is famous for its leather goods, and Cade wanted a leather-bound journal to use as a “Victory book” for recording achievements and compliments.  (My mom always told me I should have one so that when I felt down or sad or defeated, I could read it to remind myself of the good and divert my focus from the bad.  I never did it.  But Cade likes the idea and, as great a kid as he is, I figure it will still take years to fill all of the pages, so the book should last him for a while!)  The time went far too quickly and in order to stay on schedule for our midday train, we had to leave one or two errands on our “wish list” undone. 

I had fully intended to have us walk our luggage to a main street and hail a cab to get to the train station, but like magic, a cab appeared on our very (narrow) street as we rounded the corner and headed back to our apartment.  This was the first cab I’d ever seen there and it seemed like a fortuitous sign.  I ran it down and asked what it would cost to take 4 of us and our bags to the train station just a kilometer or two away… in 20 minutes.  He informed me that the fare was 15 Euro, but added that he would charge for each minute of waiting time, plus a surcharge for each bag.  We had multiple backpacks and small bags – good for fitting in smaller storage spaces on Italian trains.  In the moment, the thought of paying $50 or more to go a distance we had walked a dozen times in the last week was too much for me, so I impulsively sent him on his way…  and it is fair to say that I regretted the decision every single minute of the next hour. 

The walk to the station with luggage was miserable and incredibly time-consuming, since every few steps one of the kids (mostly Reyna) stopped and I had to cajole and encourage them to keep going. I would have paid a hundred dollars for a cab at that point, but there were none to be hailed until we were close to the station.

Camped out in the Pisa train station, waiting for our next train.

We arrived with only 5 minutes to catch our train to La Spezia, a city just down the coast from Cinque Terre, but the train was already packed and we ended up letting it go without getting on board. The next train to La Spezia was not for hours, but a quick perusal of the master train schedule showed frequent trains going the direction that we needed to go. Our Italia rail pass gave us broad train-hopping privileges, so we boarded a train to Pisa (where Cade begged me to allow him to go solo on the city bus during our layover to pursue his Lucca patch… Request denied!), then caught a train to La Spezia, and from there took a third train to Deiva Marina.  Aside from all the luggage schlepping, it wasn’t so bad, and I wished we had relaxed a bit and taken our time getting out of Florence.

We watched out the train windows for our first glimpse of the ocean as we traveled up the coast.  A couple of moms with active toddlers had boarded with us in La Spezia, and we soon discovered that one of them was a native Californian-turned-local.  She was from the Bay area, but had fallen in love with an Italian in Milan during a college term abroad.  They got married and she returned with him to his hometown… and an unexpectedly quiet life in one of the coastline villages of Cinque Terre.  Her name was Martha and she marked my map, gave me a few tips on what to do and where to go, and all-too-quickly arrived at her stop in Riomaggiore and off she went.

I had done my research when I booked our lodgings in Deiva Marina months before.  I had considered staying in one of the Cinque Terre villages, but the most appealing places were booked, had dozens of stairs, didn't sleep four people, or were simply too pricey.  I’d thus expanded my search to other little towns farther up on the coast, and found a little gem that exactly suited our needs. 

Upon arrival, we walked the few blocks to our new apartment (no taxis in this town!), which was on the bottom floor of a renovated three-level house.  The house was fronted by a brick courtyard, and sat perpendicular to a small hotel which also managed our rented lodgings.  In this tiny little Ligurian town, we found the nicest, most modern, well-equipped apartment of our whole trip.  I had seen the photos, but I was still happily surprised that it was even better than I’d remembered. In no time at all, it felt like home. 

We made it to the small grocery store down the street right before it closed for the day, and were happy we’d have food to wake up to in the morning without having to go in search of it.  We all changed into flip-flops, and Cade commented that for the first time in three months, it felt like we were on vacation. 

We walked the short distance to the rocky beach, where the kids couldn’t wait to get their feet wet and check the temperature of the water.  They wanted to explore, and scramble over and around giant rocks looking for tide pools and sea creatures.  I followed them, cringing as they went jumping from rock to rock in their flip-flops, and pleading with them to be careful.  I had maternal foresight visions of someone missing a step and getting lodged in a rock crevice with a broken ankle or leg.  But when we walked back to our new short-term home after our sunset stroll on the boardwalk, all ankles and legs were intact and everyone was in high spirits.  This was the perfect place for us to end our trip.