It was a gorgeous day for hiking, and we were not the only ones to notice. We boarded a crowded train heading to Cinque Terre (“Five Lands”), a section of coastline at the bottom of the “Italian Riviera” (which stretches from Marseilles, France down the Italian coast to La Spezia). Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso are the five small villages that make up the Cinque Terre, perched on the edge of rocky coastal cliffs overlooking the gorgeous Mediterranean. They are accessible only by train, boats, and footpaths. We ambitiously planned to wander through the streets of all five hamlets and hike the miles of trails that connect them so that we could enjoy the scenic shoreline views.
Seats on the train were scarce, but we were only going a few stops so we didn’t mind standing; we joined the crowd of travelers in the loading area by the train car doors. Through the passage door window of the adjacent two-level car, we could see three Trenitalia conductors in navy blazers with red trim busy scribbling out violation notices and collecting fines from all of the naïve tourists who boarded without appropriate train tickets. We were potentially among them. We had purchased our tickets from the travel agency in Deiva Marina just minutes before boarding, but the train arrived before we were able to find a working yellow validation box to stamp them with the date and time. No time-stamp validation = violation. Ignorance or lack of willful intent is no excuse. This must be a big source of revenue for this particular area, because there was some rigorous policing going on. In a way, the approach is clever: the conductors point out that each violation is a 50 Euro fine, but routinely let people “off the hook” by only charging them 10 Euros per person. People feel annoyed and frustrated, but are grateful that their fines were reduced by 80%… so it doesn’t completely spoil their day or their love for Italy. Still, for the four of us, that would be a 40 Euro (about $55) payout for a train ride we had paid for... I couldn’t help thinking that I would rather spend that money on a week’s worth of gelato and foccacia bread. J
The train agent came into our section of the car and nailed a whole group of older American travelers for having blank tickets without valid time-stamps. There were about eight of them traveling together, and they had just been lightheartedly discussing their “oh, we’ll just plead ignorance and talk our way out of it” strategy before he approached. As he was writing them up, I proactively offered him our unstamped tickets and my explanation (in English) that we’d been in a hurry to catch the train and the validation box we’d tried in DM was broken. He glanced at me, took the tickets, and told me to wait while he finished with the others. Rather than being resigned to their fate and ponying up the cash, the Americans unsuccessfully attempted to stick to game plan and plead their collective case… and their argumentative stance bought us enough time to reach our stop and slip out the doors without even a backwards glance. Lucky. And a great excuse to later seek out celebratory foccacia bread and gelato!
In Monterosso, we discovered that the trail to Vernazza was closed for safety issues due to landslides, so we decided to reverse our day’s itinerary. We bought our Cinque Terre passes for unlimited access to the trails and trains between the 5 towns and caught another train to the last village so we could start from there and work our way back.
RIOMAGGIORE
We disembarked in Riomaggiore, and as we wandered out of the train station, I had an odd and overwhelming moment of sheer panic. I didn’t know where to go or what to do. I fought back tears as I stopped and confided in Cade that I didn’t know if I could do it. He laughed –- he thought I was kidding. It WAS laughable, really. We had been traveling for months, and had conquered the streets of dozens of towns –- including those in huge cities the likes of Vienna, Rome, Budapest and Prague -- and I was feeling intimidated by a handful of streets and strangers in 5 tiny little villages!? Ridiculous. I figured I was simply tired and burned out after months on the solo parent/tour guide/cook/housekeeper/trip planner job. But I still couldn’t shake the angst.  |
| There's the elevator to Riomaggiore... right by Regan's head. :) |
The town is charming, filled with winding paths and alleyways, archways, staircases… It didn’t take us long to work up an appetite (did I mention it’s built uphill?) , so we popped into a bakery for some replenishing calories in the form of yummy foccacia bread. We wandered along the main road to the upper part of the village to see the Church of San Giovanni Battista, originally built in 1340. As we later stopped for gelato, Cade declared that the Fragola (strawberry) from this particular Gelateria in Riomaggiore was his favorite Fragola of the whole trip. Given his relatively vast connoisseuric gelato samplings, that was high praise indeed. As we strolled through the town, Cade developed a sudden urgent need to relieve himself. We found a public restroom, only to discover that the facilities basically consisted of a ceramic hole in the ground. Even more unsettling to Cade was the discovery that it had been recently used by an inexperienced squatter seemingly cursed with Montezuma’s revenge and very poor aim (and presumably newly soiled and smelly shoes! Yuck.) Cade was disgusted, but desperate… and now has a newfound respect and appreciation for toilets. And the girls? Well, we did find the women's bathroom to be in better shape, but they decided they really didn’t need to go after all.
We ran into Martha again after our tour through town, and she gave us her e-mail address and phone number just in case we needed anything during our stay. So kind. It was nice to know there was someone we could call to bail us out if we were ever thrown in jail for not validating our train tickets. J
Still to come... Part II of Cinque Terre!
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