Visiting the Cinque Terre

October 27, 2007 Saturday

It had been raining off and on for most of the past 3-4 days. Saturday was supposed to be partly cloudy and Sunday was supposed to be sunny and warm. As usual, the meteorologists were wrong. Saturday was beautiful—sunny, warm, and only slightly breezy. Today a classmate and I were to go to the Cinque Terre.

The Cinque Terre (Five Lands), are five fishing villages poised on rocky slopes over the Mediterranean (www.my-cinque-terre.com). For centuries, they were interconnected by hiking paths and boats (they have been growing wine grapes, olives, lemons, and other produce since time immemorial). And the only way into or out of them was by boat until 1870 when the first rail line connected Vernazza with Rome and Torino (thereafter the other villages were slowly connected to the rail line). Much later, the towns were slowly connected to the modern road system, although the road that connects the towns meanders through the hills, following contours, rather than boring through tunnels as the trains do.

In the past decade or so, the Cinque Terre have been designated an Italian National Park and a UNESCO Heritage site. This provides some protection from development and discourages the more egregious activities that frequent tourist areas (like lots of advertising, etc.).

The names of the 5 villages are (from south to north): Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, Monterosso al Mare. Vidir, my classmate, and I took the train from Genova to Riomaggiore and walked to Vernazze. The entire hiking path interconnecting the 5 villages is 12 miles long. The path from Riomaggiore to Manarola is called the Via dell’Amore, or Path of Love (built in 1920s). This is an easy walk of about 30 minutes, well-paved and level. It makes an easy warm-up for later. Riomaggiore is where the National Park station is located for the Cinque Terre and has two rows of houses and lots of seafood restaurants. The Via dell’Amore is right on the coast and has wonderful views of the villages at both ends and the Mediterranean (see the picture album). Manarola is a bit larger than Riomaggiore, but not by much. We continued the walk.

Once you’re north of Manarola and off the Via dell’Amore, the path gets a bit more rugged. The paving stops in favor of beaten dirt with rocks reinforcing the edges. It also begins to rise, with rock-edged steps of uneven height and depth making the effort more of hike or trek than a walk. You definitely don’t want to do this in dress shoes—you need at least tennis shoes here (preferably waterproof if it’s rained recently, which it had). This section of the path also begins the area where you see some of the famous terraces. These terraces are supported by stone walls, muretti, of about 4-5 feet in height. These muretti have been built over the past 1000 years. The stones were carried by hand up the slopes to buttress the terraces to keep the soil from washing away. Some of the grape vines and olive trees on these terraces could only be harvested by lowering men on ropes (these days, modern technology has solved the problem—they use miniature railroad engines and cars to get to these remote terraces). It’s commonly said that if you put all the muretti end-to-end, their length would exceed that of the Great Wall of China.

Anyway, it’s an impressive sight to see all these terraces following the contours and covered with vines and trees (see photo album). And the sights from the high trail are magnificent.

This leg of the hike, from Manarola to Corniglia, is a bit strenuous and took about an hour. If you can make it up 4 flights of stairs a couple times a day, this leg is not hard (not easy, either). Especially the end. Just when you think you’ve climbed all the stairs to Corniglia, you are faced with a switchback of stairs. 382 of them to be exact, at least that’s what the sign says when you get to the top. But what a view!

This is where most people should stop hiking and take the train to the next village. The hike onto Vernazza is strenuous and takes a couple hours, unless you’re in reasonable shape (I’m not and I was huffing and puffing and just putting one foot in front of the other a good part of the way). The trail goes way up and way down and the trail is very rugged (although the changes in height are not sudden, there are a lot of rustic “stairs”, and a lot of unevenness in the trail, even on the relatively level sections. In places the trail is very narrow with no railing between you and a drop of a few hundred feet down a rocky slope. The stairs, if such you call them, are very rough with lots of rocks placed unevenly to keep the trail from eroding. You really should be wearing hiking boots for this section, not tennis shoes.

At one point during the hike on this section, there was a sign “Free Beach” and pointing to a path that was a vertical 500 feet down to the beach. I can only think (hope!) that the sign was a joke (but there was a path that was not overgrown, so someone—or something—must use it)! Another one on the other side of the point added a scrawled: "Nude Swede" to the sign (of course, there was no indication of the gender or age of the Swede). At this point, after huffing and puffing for quite a while, some nutso all dressed up in lycra went running past at full tilt and down some treacherous steps (I found myself wishing he mis-stepped and pitched headlong over the cliff!).

But the worst part of this section is not the effort it takes to climb it. It’s that most of the time there are trees and other vegetation blocking your view on one side and the hill on the other, so there’s little to see most of the time. Not that you have much chance to look anyway, since you have to watch how you place your feet to keep from turning an ankle or stepping into mud. But when the view is there, it is fantastic! Now whether those 2 places where there is a view are worth the 2 hours of strenuous hiking? I think not. But there are those who think otherwise.

Once at Vernazza, the 4^th village, I refused to continue on to the 5th village, which is supposed to be the hardest hike of all. Besides, it was already late in the day by the time we got to Vernazza—we wouldn't have made Monterosso al Mare before sundown. So we got some dinner at a local pizzeria and took the train back to Genova. I was exhausted, but got lots of great photos. It was a good day!

Genova and My first week of classes

October 22-26, 2007 Monday through Friday

My first week of school. Class starts at 10am and ends at 1:30pm (with a 20 minute break from 11:40 to 12:00). There are 3 people in class: Liz from Atlanta, Vidir Sigurdsson from Reykjavik, Iceland, and me. The teacher name is Nazarena, a very stylish, young Italian woman living in Genova. She’s studying French and English.

Liz started classes a week ago, so she’s gone over the material in the first week once already. I’ve picked up some Italian over the years, and had 10 2-hour classes last October near home. Vidir has no Italian at all—zip. He speaks pretty good English, but he’s at a disadvantage since all the explanations are given in English, but he has to make sense out of them in Icelandic. Apparently Icelandic is very close to old Norse (the language the Vikings used). Anyway, he’s struggling.

The first week covered about the same material as the 10 classes I took last October (which I’d mostly forgotten). This included the conjugations for present tense for the verbs “to be” (essere), “to have” (avere), and the regular verb conjugations (of which Italian has 4 ending in –are, -ere, and -ire with 2 variations).

Life in Genova. At first, I was disappointed with Genova, but now, it’s growing on me. The apartment I’m in is in the “centro storico” or historic center of Genova. Genova has the largest medieval city center in Europe. The “streets” I walk between apartment and school have been here since the 13^th century. I say “streets” because many of them are only about 5-6 feet wide and are more alleys than streets. Here they are called “vicoli” (or “vicolo” for one). No cars are allowed in the centro storico during the day and only some vicoli can accommodate cars, even at night. The harbor is about 200 yards away from my front door (although I can’t see it from my apartment or the front door).

This all has certain ramifications. If there are no cars (or trucks) allowed, or even possible in a lot of cases, then what? How do they pick up garbage? Well, it turns out that everyone has to carry their garbage to pick-up points either on the edge of the historic center, or on one of the few wider vicoli that can accommodate a specially constructed narrow garbage truck.

In medieval times, the areas around the port or harbor were not the nicest areas in a town (and often were the worst). This still applies in Genova. There are no more warehouses or bars with drunken sailors. But the historic center is still populated with prostitutes and druggers.

One vicolo, which is one of the main routes I use, has LOTS of ladies working the street. Some of them are quite old (60+). The story is that they have had the same clients for decades, which is how they survive. And there's drugs. I was out with some people from school at a nearby bar and we stopped at an intersection to get our bearings before we headed off in different directions. I noticed a couple of boys snorting coke over to one side--I guess we interrupted them 'cause they took off after they finished their "line".

But "everyone" says "it's not dangerous", meaning you might get pickpocketed, but you won't get physically hurt in the process. And if they recognize you as a "local" you're probably safe from pickpockets. Hopefully by now, they recognize me. It's impossible to go anywhere (without going a LONG way around and WAY up the hill) and avoid the area with the prostitutes and "scary" looking crowd, so you just go through, look like you have a purpose, and make eye contact without looking scared (or like you’re "looking" for something). My usual rule to figure out how safe an area is: watch the little old ladies. If they clutch their purses tightly, then you better watch your pockets. If not, then things are okay. If the little old ladies don't even come out at night, then beware! I haven't seen any little old ladies out after the shops close. Hmmm.

At first I was very disappointed in Genova. And not just because the old city center that I thought was going to be cool turned out to be rather unpleasant. Genova is known to have hundreds of piazzas. The historic center is loaded with them. But they’re almost all tiny little things that have 4-5 story buildings on all sides—so there’s little sun except right at mid-day. Many of them are less than 20 feet on a side. But I’ve discovered other parts of Genova than the historic center. Outside the historic center there are piazzas that are worthy of the name, with caffes and a reasonable amount of sun. And shops that stay open all afternoon (and even some on Sunday).

Genova, day 2. Sunday's are closed.

October 21, 2007 Sunday

It’s been a while since I’ve used a caffe moka pot. Of course, there were no directions. So I fumbled around trying to remember how much water, how much coffee, how to cook it (I do remember you don’t want to put it on high and let the water blast through the grinds). Well, it pretty much worked. I didn’t put in quite enough coffee, but it will certainly help wake me up.

This is Italy, and whether they are still devout Catholics or not, Sunday is the day of rest. Very few businesses are open, and then those are clustered around what might constitute the tourist areas (e.g., by the harbor) and are operated almost exclusively by Middle Eastern or Asian merchants.

The supermarket was open 9-12, but of course, I missed that. Apparently there was a bread shop open this morning, too. Now, however, everything is closed. I took a walk up to the school to be sure I didn’t get lost tomorrow morning, the first day. And I thought, I’ll get some lunch while I’m out. Not. I walked for nearly 2 hours along some of the streets that seemed most busy yesterday. Almost deserted. Very few people about. It was spooky with everything locked up and hardly anyone else walking around.

I finally got a slice of pizza at a shop on the harbor (choices were pizza or gyros).

So back to the apartment and up the stairs. Fortunately I have enough stuff to fix dinner tonight. But no wine. Next week, I’ll be better prepared.

Genova, day 1. Setting up the apartment

October 20, 2007, Saturday

Time to inventory the apartment to see what groceries and other items I need. The kitchen has 3 pots (7 liters, 5 liters, 1.5 liters), one skillet (non-stick and badly scarred), a bread knife, an assortment of dishes, cutlery, and one abused caffe moka pot.

So I needed to get at least a decent chef knife and a decent skillet/sauté pan. And a new caffe moka pot. Plus groceries: pasta, olive oil, garlic, onions, etc. Of course I didn’t remember everything on the first round (besides, I couldn’t have carried everything in one go). So back out. As in most of Europe, there are specialty stores for some kinds of foodstuffs: meat and/or cheese, bread, pastries/desserts. Also as in other parts of Europe, which is way ahead of the US in this regard, they irradiate some perishable items: like milk and eggs. They keep them on the regular grocery shelf, not refrigerated. Just in case I needed some, I got a small carton of cream that way (it has an expiration date of Jan 28, 2008).

I found, by accident, a shop that sells kitchen stuff. Just what I needed for the knife and pan. It was one of those places that have stuff piled, stacked, shelved, nook and crannied everywhere. And one shopkeeper, a nice woman who put up with my broken Italian. I wanted some tongs, and not knowing the Italian for it, I mimed it. She thought I meant a hot-pad. Then she thought maybe a lobster cracker. Finally, after some more words and gestures, she got it. All she had were tongs that looked like brobdingnagian tweezers, long and thin. Hardly something you’d want to use with pasta or to turn over a cotolette.

Then I went into the bread shop. “What did I want?”, they said. I looked at the variety of shapes of breads and thought: okay, steady now. And blurted out: “Io sono un Americano, e parlo solo un poco Italiano” or I’m an American and I speak only a little Italian. So the first thing they propose is a loaf that is a bit crunchy on the outside, but soft on the inside (they think I want something like Wonder bread). But then I saw a few loaves with names I knew, but I wanted to try some of the other shapes. I got one roll that was good for two meals and another item that looked vaguely like the head on a stalk of wheat, but with grains that were about 3 inches long and 1-1/2 inches wide (and yes, it was crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside).

I went to the cheese shop for Parmigiano. The chef at La Strada, one of my favorite Italian restaurants in Palo Alto, said I should really try some Castelmagno. This is a cheese made in a town of the same name east of Genova and that is aged in caves with a special kind of mold that causes the rind of the cheese to turn brown. He said it was the ultimate Italian cheese, and could I send him back a round of it. Well, I checked. A round is 5-6kg, at close to 30 euro/kg, and then shipping…. Sorry Donato, you’ll have to get your Castelmagno yourself. But I did get a chunk. It’s a semi-hard cheese and tastes a bit nutty, with a hint of blue about it. It’s more crumbly than Parmigiano, with almost a chalky texture. And it’s pretty good stuff to taste.

It’s a strange thing. I can understand a lot of what people say to me, but I can’t say much back. And local customs vary. In other parts of Italy they greet you with Buongiorno (or Good Day). Here often they say Salve (which I think means Hail, at least that’s what it means in Latin, as in “Salve Maria” or “Hail, Mary”). I suspect it’s like going from Germany, where they say they say Guten Tag (Good Day), to Austria where they say “Gruss Gott” or God’s Greetings.

Well, back up the stairs one more time. Dinner tonight is chicken sauted with garlic and mixed with penne rigate and pesto Genovese. Side salad. Nebbiolo d’Alba. My first self-cooked meal in Italy (I almost said my first home cooked meal in Italy, but I’ve had home cooked in Rome at Marco Sampaolo’s parents’).

Last day in Alba. Going to Genova

October 19, 2007, Friday

My last day in Alba. I packed up to begin the trek to Genova, but went for a last stroll around the town to take more pictures. I had lunch at Locanda del Pilone and met some folks from LA and their friends who had just moved to Alba (they’re Texans with a drawl—they spoke Italian, but I didn’t notice if it had a drawl, too). It turned out that the restaurant was owned by the Cerreto family, who also have a winery just outside Alba. The restaurant manager was able to get me a slot in a tour at 2pm, which just fit my schedule.

So packed, checked out of the Hotel Savona in Alba, I went to the Cerreto cantina (winery). Most wineries require reservations, you can’t just walk in like you can in Napa or Sonoma. They are also much more personal. There were 3 of us on the tour. The other 2 were a couple from Australia. He worked for an Aussie wine company and was in Piemonte getting clues for wine-making back home. So we were treated very well and offered tastings of wines that usually didn’t make it to the tasting table. The first part of the tour went over the Cerreto family holdings vineyards in Alba, Barolo, Barbaresco; what sorts of wine they made at each of them, etc. We toured the wine making facilites and met a couple of the Cerreto sons that currently run the winery. For the tasting, they take into the tasting room and all sit at a table where the tour guide pours the selections (this is the way that Caymus sets up their tastings in Napa). All in all, a very nice tour (but the Cerreto wines aren’t that good).

From there, I hopped onto the Autostrada and drove to Genova (about 1-1/2 hours at 80 mph or 130kph). Well, I arrived in Genoa (Genova in Italian) and checked into my "studio" apartment. After the GPS misdirected me to the Hertz rental place (I'm not sure what they mean by their "Neverlost" brand name, but it's pretty bad when it can't even get you back to Hertz!). Finally a guy from Hertz came by and showed me where it was (I wasn't far, but I couldn't understand what he was telling me to do).

I get a taxi and meet the landlady, Signora Giovanna Pescetto. The building she says is 16th century, and the floor is original brick (and sags in the middle). Anyway, the building is in a pedestrian-only zone, so I have to lug my bags up a stairway to get from the plaza where the taxi left me off to the front door of the building. Then she says someone is staying in the apartment they sent pictures of and so she's given me a bigger unit on the 3rd floor (remember here, the first floor is one flight UP, so an Italian 3^rd floor is a US 4^th floor). So more lugging (my big bag weighed in at 53 pounds when I check in at the airport, and felt like 63 pounds after the first flight, 73 pounds after the second flight, …).

So much for wondering if I was going to get enough exercise. Just walking up to the apartment a couple times a day will do it! Even without luggage.

We get to the apartment. The front door opens on a kitchen/dining combo. Off to one side is my bedroom with 2 single beds. So far, so good. There is a washing machine, but she says it doesn't wring all the water out, and a clothes line is out the window, just like in the movies!

Then there are set of stairs going up to a loft. The original room must have had 14 foot ceilings. This has been divided vertically to make the loft. From the bath level, there are another 3 steps to the living room and a second bedroom (anyone want to visit?). However, there's a catch. The clearance between the floor and the original beamed ceiling in the loft is about 5 feet. I can just stand up if I put my head between the beams. Fortunately, the bath ceiling is a normal height.

It's fairly nice, all in all. It even has DSL (with a wired connection), so I won't have to take my laptop to the school to do email.

After quickly unpacking, I head back down the (way too many) stairs to find dinner. Luckily there’s a pizzeria just a few yards from the front door. Time to eat and crash.

Torino, day 2, and the Benedictine Abbey of Vezzolano

October 18, 2007, Thursday

I decided to go back to Torino to check out Eataly (www.eataly.it) and then go northwest to Albugnano to see the Benedictine Abbey of Vezzolano. Getting to Eataly was pretty easy as it’s right off the main road going into Torino from Alba. Eataly is one of the centers of the Slow Food movement here in Italy (www.slowfood.com). The slow food movement was started in Italy in 1986. It’s publication office was opened in Bra in 1987 (there’s a picture of the office in the Bra, La Morra, Barolo photo album).

Eataly bills itself as the largest food and wine market in Torino (they have plans for stores in Milan, Genoa, New York). It is a huge store for Italy. Probably about the size of the Whole Foods on El Camino Real at San Antonio in Palo Alto, with products that are along similar lines. Eataly places more emphasis on explaining the origin of the food they have, and also on the connection of the food with the locale in which it was grown. Eataly has a large education program with cooking classes, etc. I forgot to take pictures while I was there, but their website has several.

After strolling through Eataly, I drove to the Benedictine Abbey of Vezzolano. The guidebook said to go to Albugnano, but the abbey is in Vezzolano, so why not go there first? I programmed the Hertz Everlost to Vezzolano. After leaving Torino, I went most of the way back to Asti before heading north again (there are no highways between Torino and Albugnano/Vezzolano, only small roads). Once heading north, I kept getting semi-lost because the Everlost didn’t have the most current maps—especially for roundabouts. There are LOTS of roundabouts in this part of Italy where many roads come together. The Everlost system only tells you to take the 1^st (2^nd, 3^rd, etc.) exit off the roundabout, not the direction. But they add new roads to the roundabouts, so the Everlost count it off. Usually you’re okay because the signs tell you what exit takes you to towns in that direction. But for small towns, well, they aren’t listed.

At one point, Everlost took me across a field on a “road” (I’d have called it a tractor path—dirt, rocks, and any pavement disintegrated long ago). Finally it got me to what it thought was Vezzolano. I was in a small village of maybe 6 homes on the side of a hill. The road was almost wide enough for the tiny Fiat I was driving and it wound around buildings before coming to an even narrower path (another tractor path). I looked around and saw nothing that looked like an abbey, only farms and farm buildings.

So I pull into a yard with an old woman feeding chickens and ask. Where is the Benedictine Abbey of Vezzolano? She looked at me like I was crazy (whether because of my Italian or at the sight of some lost idiot from the city), but finally shook her head and explained that yes, Vezzolano was the way I was going, but that way was only a goat track she wouldn’t try in a 4-wheel drive truck (yes, I did get all that after she slowed down and repeated herself). She said, go back the way you came to the main road and go to Albugnano, and then to Vezzolano from that side, not from this side. She then added a bunch of turn left here, right there, go up the hill and turn right at something or other. Never mind. Even if I’d understood, I couldn’t have remembered. Grazie. Arrivederci.

Getting back into the car, I turned off the Everlost and tossed it into the trunk. Back to the main road and follow the signs to Albugnano. Albugnano is a small village (but huge compared to the little place I’d just been). It sits on the top of a hill and has great views over the countryside (there are pictures). From Albugnano, there are signs to Vezzolano. As near as I can tell, the only thing in Vezzolano are a few farms and the Benedictine Abbey which was built in the 12^th and 13^th centuries. It is the “finest example of Romanesque architecture in Piemonte.” By this time it’s 5:20pm. I approach the abbey and it’s locked. But someone is driving up to a solid wood gate, which is opened by a young boy. The car drives through and I try to ask the boy if I can get into the abbey? No, it closed at 5pm, he says as the gate swings shut with a deep boom. Okay. I drove 3 hours to get lost and get to the abbey after it closed.

The grounds around the abbey remind me of the descriptions of abbey life in the Cadfael mystery stories by Ellis Peters. There’s a walled orchard, and outside the wall there’s fields of vegetables. Too bad I didn’t get to go inside.

On the way home from Vezzolano, I see a sign to Pino d’Asti. This is a town that makesa white wine from pinto noir grapes. So I say, why not take a look. It’s another hill town, but the hill is very high and precipitous, and a pretty nice drive to the top. The road through the village comes up one side of the hill, wanders across the top, and down the other side. The road is seldom straight, but has switchbacks going up and down, and winds through the village, probably following cow paths or pedestrian ways from the past.

Finally back in Alba (it took much less time to return since I didn’t get lost as often). I had dinner at Osteria la Libera (Michelin recommendation). Nice place. The food was good, but not great.

Note: The cost of unleaded gas is about euro 1.35 per liter, which is about $1.89 per liter, or approximately $7.80 per gallon. It took euro 53 ($74) to fill up a very small Fiat Punto. So when I come home, I don’t think I’ll be complaining about gas prices!

Torino, day 1

October 17, 2007, Wednesday

Today is the destination is Torino. It’s about an hour’s drive on the autostrada, or two if you take the back roads leisurely. Not being in a hurry, I figured a nice drive through the countryside would be nice. More hills, vineyards, etc. Eventually I have to get onto the highway to get into Torino, which is one of the larger cities in Italy and home to the Savoy kings (so there are lots of palaces, etc.).

Since I had no clue where to go, I just got horribly lost. I finally saw a parking place on the street and got out of the car. I did have a paper map (Alwayslost was no help since I didn’t know where I wanted to go). I headed for the nearest café, had some coffee, and figured out where I was and likely where I wanted to go. Fortunately I was somewhat near one of the areas with palaces. After a 30 minute walk, I was there. The tourist information booth wasn’t where it was supposed to be. So I wandered around looking at architecture, shops, etc.

The palace, most recently occupied by Vittorio Emanuele II (1820-1878), was open for tours, but it was guided tours only. The next one left too late. Even so, you got to walk through a bit of the palace to get to the ticket office (no photos allowed, so sorry). I wandered toward a museum next door that had an exhibit of Afghan antiquities. I thought, okay, why not?

I’ve been reading Mary Renault’s books on Alexander the Great (356-323BC). It happens that he conquered Persia and parts of Afghanistan. There were a lot of articles in the exhibit from that period showing the Greek influence on the native jewelry, pots, plates, serving utensils, etc. It was an unexpected, and happy, conjunction to be able to see some of the things that might have been used in the story.

Back in Alba, I had dinner at Conte Rosso. Ravioli with tartuffo bianco; veal with Barolo sauce (this seems to be a habit, pasta and meat in Barolo).