monterosso al mare

It will not be long until an American-based movie is filmed in Cinque Terre. "Discovered" by Americans only in the 1990s, these romantic five villages on the Mediterranean Coast between La Spezia and Genoa provide breathtaking views, memorable cuisine and, if you try hard enough, good accommodations at reasonable prices. These five villages are becoming so fixed in the American consciousness that a series of "Cinque Terre" restaurants are springing up in America (New York City and Portland, ME, for example, have them). Though the villages are currently overrun by Americans (and the paths between some of the villages are impassable in rainy weather), there is still more than enough scenery and freshness to discover. This essay details our two day stay in Cinque Terre after leaving Rome. First, however, a word on getting to CT.

Thinking About the Vacation to CT

I mentioned earlier that when you go to Italy, you should try to spend at least 10 days and, preferably, two weeks. You must first "conceptualize" the vacation, thinking of which parts of the country are realistic to see and which are probably more inviting at various times of the year [for example, I would tend to avoid areas south of Rome after about mid-July because of the oppressive heat]. Given the number of days you want to spend, then, you need to plan how to spend the time. The first question for me was to decide where and when I wanted a car. Cars can be a real pain in Italy, not only because gas is expensive, but because many cities (such as Florence) don't permit you to drive your car in the city. In addition, car parking in CT is quite expensive (up to 30 Euro--about $35 per day), and the rail service is so superior in Italy that you can get almost anywhere you want by train.

When sorting out these variables (length of stay, where to visit for how long, when to have car), we first planned the itinerary, deciding that the necessary thing (stay in Rome with the Stanford group from June 21-25) would inaugurate our trip and then other things (two or three stops) would conclude the trip (June 25-July 4). We selected CT because it was recommended to us by many, it provided an "escape" from the city and, from what we could read, it had an old world feel to it that differed radically from our American experience. So, we decided that we would "train" it to CT, Florence and then Spoleto (for the Music festival), with three days of car rental in Spoleto to explore the Umbrian countryside. You really have to plan each part of the trip with transportation and then hotels in order to make things flow smoothly. So, we would be in CT directly after our Rome stay.

Picking a Place in CT

The biggest worries we had in planning the CT part of the trip were the train connections between Rome and these villages and where to stay in CT. We had no idea of the character of each of the five villages, where the "strategic center" of CT was, whether we would be "screwed" if we stayed in one village and not the next, etc. Thankfully, you really can't make a bad decision in staying in CT. Each town has its own feel, and you only can develop your own "feel" of each of the five villages by staying in one of them. So, we decided to select Monterosso al Mare, the northernmost of the five villages, principally because it had easiest availability of hotels. It was not a bad decision to stay there. Indeed, La Spaggia Hotel, with its proprietor Andrea (part politician, part man-about-town), gave service of a 5-star variety even though the room itself was not "worth" the 150 Euros we paid for it. But, as we learned in Italy, if you have a hotel proprietor who is willing to help you (i.e., exchange money without service charge, give good restaurant advice, suggest best ways to spend a few hours, etc.), it is worth far more than the 30 or so Euros you might save by booking a more inexpensive venue. Life is a series of trade-offs, we all know. This is never more true than when one is in Italy. By the way, Andrea does most of his business by fax, and the fax number for La Spiaggia (which means "the beach") is 011 39 0187 817075. Tell Andrea I sent you. With his love of American tourists, he will probably remember me. Oh, you can write in English to him.

After selecting a place to stay for two days, and making advance reservations through a travel service for our TrenItalia tickets (check their website for travel information), we were ready to "show up." Oh, one other point to notice. When you travel by train in Italy, you have all kinds of options about what klnd of train to take. This is extremely confusing to Americans since we, if we ever take trains, just have two varieties in mind: locals or commuter trains, and Amtrak trains, which are invariably late. In Italy there are as many as 10 varieties of train, from the non air-conditioned commuter trains which stop at every podunk village to the aerodynamically sleek Eurostar, which glides through city after city only stopping occasionally and discharging or picking up its passengers. Chances are that you will want to travel in an "intermediate" way, with air conditioned comfort and possibly first-class accommodations. First-class is not available on all trains and really is not very much more expensive than "regular" class. Well, this is something that you just need to be aware of when you travel. What I have learned in life and travel is that the first time in any new system, you make mistakes. But the mistakes don't kill you, and you can learn from them for the future. Thus, you will have to make your own unique errors; I look forward to hearing about what some of them will be.

So, Virginia, my friend and traveling partner, arranged the train tickets. We had first-class accommodations, even though the trip from Rome to La Spezia was in a 6-person (regular) cabin. We were loaded down with luggage, but managed to fit it all in. The advantage of these tight quarters was that we eventually struck up a conversation (in Italian) with a young couple who just had gotten married. She was from Rome and he was from Genoa; they were going to the latter to stay with his parents for a while after the wedding. It was great to be in the presence of two people who clearly loved each other; they easily forgave our Italian grammatical mistakes as we talked about everything from the World Cup to availability of medical care in America and Italy.

One concluding note. We wanted to go to Monterosso, and so had booked a train through La Spezia, thinking we had to get off and transfer to a "local" train. In fact, had we stayed on the train from Rome we would have arrived at Monterosso about 30 minutes before we actually did. But, no matter. We left Rome about 3:50 and finally arrived in Monterosso about 8:50 p.m. By 9:15 we were settled in our hotel (an easy walk from the railroad station). By 10:00 we were enjoying our first CT meal.

The next essay tells how we planned our "day" at CT.

1945