So - this will be a quick post, bang bang bang, because this house is covered in drying laundry and clean dishes, all of which need to be put away in their respective cubby-holes.
(I always start out thinking "this will be a quick post" - then stumble away from the computer five hours later.)
The ladies are in Siena today, hopefully enjoying the medieval architecture and lack of motorini, but last weekend we stuffed them into our luggage and dragged them to the Cinque Terre. Husbear and I visited the area on our backpacking trip during the summer of '01, and were excited to be returning.
These five towns, along the Ligurian coast of Italy, have become very popular in the last few years, especially with American travelers. (Blame Rick Steves and his little blue book.) Their beauty is spectacular.
First, a train.
Though they're blocked by a couple of excited photographers, the Apuan Alps are visible for a good bit of the train ride. The area we were passing through included Carrara, famous for its marble.
We arrived in Monterosso al Mare, the largest of the Cinque Terre's five towns, and dropped our bags at our hotel. The hotel was cheap, but sharing a bathroom comprised of one toilet and one shower with 10 other people leaves a bit of a bad taste in one's mouth - and I had a supremely irritating moment upon checkout, when I was told off by the desk clerk for attempting to secure our luggage in an open luggage storage area.
But the location was wonderful, right off of the beach, in the new half of town.
Before dinner, we went on a brief walk.
WhiteMike and Megs, if you're reading this, you probably recognize that rock from, say, June of 2001?
We had dinner reservations at Restaurant Miky, which turned out to be right next door to our hotel. (Our proprietor tried to steer us to another restaurant, possibly run by a friend? by saying that we would need to bring two credit cards to eat at Miky. Turns out he was full of it.)
Even with reservations, we had to wait almost a half-hour for a table - they are very popular!
Smiling happy hungry ladies...
The interior was crowded but inviting, with some really cute clay buildings on the walls. (I'm so bad with art.)
We started off with two full orders of the Capriccio di Mare, each of which were a tour-de-force of six cold seafood small plates and three warm. Each order was 15 E, but it was well worth it to be able to try so many wonderful things!
Clockwise from the foreground, (all cold) we have an octopus, potato and olive salad, cooked tuna topped with marinated onion, marinated salmon, marinated swordfish with a balsamic cream sauce, and salted preserved anchovies. Not pictured with his chilly brethren - marinated anchovies. (Anchovies are a Ligurian specialty - and they're really good here, especially if all prior anchovy experience revolves around gross pizzas or extra-salty US Greek salads.)
Onto the hot stuff!
Warm stewed octopus. Not pictured - stuffed mussels.
I like eating octopus, but I'm a little squeamish because they're like the Einsteins of the sea and are totally fascinating animals. Of course, pigs are pretty smart too and I eat them (probably something I shouldn't be admitting during the Days of Awe...). Anyway, this was good, but tasted pretty heavy after the succession of citrussy and vinegary cold dishes.
Back to the anchovies!
These little tasties were stuffed with various herbs and meats and bread crumbs and then fried. Very tasty - though to be honest, I could have done with a tad less filling? That's just crazy me, though.
After our symphony of seafood, it was time to move on to our three pasta dishes. First, we ordered the trenette alla pescatrice (meaning pasta in the style of the fisherwoman) - which comes in an ingenious service. It's a pizza pot pie!
The pasta is cooked, and then laid into a large baking dish which is then closed off with pizza dough. The whole thing is then placed in a wood-burning oven and cooked for a couple of minutes - just long enough to give the dough some color and impart delicious wood-cooked flavors to the pasta.
Along with the aforementioned trenette, which were long noodles served with a monkfish tomato sauce, we all split a dish of fish ravioli in a pink pine-nut sauce and trofie in pesto. We were given beautiful glass plates for our pastas.
Far left - fish ravioli. Middle - trenette, out of their delicious pizza home. Right - trofie con pesto.
These were all amazingly tasty. The fish ravioli, a dish I've never had before, had a very light fishy flavor - the pink pine-nut sauce was exquisite, yummy and creamy. The trenette (known as linguini in other regions of Italy) were quite good, but we all had difficulty locating the monkfish! The trofie were a fun new pasta shape, but the table split on the pesto. Some felt the flavors were too strong. (I was not in this camp, though I do agree that a full bowl of this could be a bit overwhelming.)
To finish? Le zeppole, a giant warm cream puff oozing with lemon custard and strawberries. (also lemon cream puffs, not pictured.)
This dessert was so sinfully goopily awesome that, the next night, Husbear was sent back on a mission to procure one of these to go. Wow.
All of this food was washed down with a lovely bottle of a DOC local wine called Monterosso - made from the three grapes common to the region, Bosco, Albarola, and Vermentino. This makes for a really nice light white, perfect with seafood.
And a glass of sciacchetra for me, please! This dessert wine is sort of like vin santo, but lighter and less sweet. Possibly my new favorite dessert wine, though we couldn't afford to buy a bottle.
We went back across the street to our hotel, where we spent the next hour trying to get into the bathroom. Fun.
Saturday morning, we got up early and stuffed ourselves at the more than ample free breakfast. Sweet rolls, hard-boiled eggs, salami, ham, cheese, Nutella, honey, yogurt, three kinds of cereal - out of all proportion to the room we were staying in. Eh, we were very glad to have it, since it meant lunch could wait for days and days!
We left the hotel, going in the direction of the ferry launch. (Auntie, I am so sorry to tell you that the small ferries stop running October 31... we'll figure something out!)
Monterosso is the largest and most resorty of the five towns, but it is still entirely lovely, with the winding streets of an old Greek island town and the beauty of the Italian coast. I very much enjoyed it as our home base.
The boat took about a forty minutes to reach the first town, Riomaggiore, our starting point for the day. On the way, we were able to get a few good pictures of the towns.
Traveling from Monterosso to Riomaggiore, the first town you pass is Vernazza. This is Rick Steves' favorite town, and is thus the most crowded. Very pretty, though. But crowded.
Corniglia, the middle town, sits on a hill and doesn't have a harbor. I think this may be my favorite of the five, with its 280 residents. (The bustling metropolis of Vernazza boasts 500.)
Closest to Riomaggiore sits Manarola.
Riomaggiore is considered the first of the towns - most people start their walks here, with the Via dell'Amore (walk of love) to Manarola.
Since by this point we were already approaching 11:30, we didn't linger too long in Riomaggiore - just long enough to buy a 16 euro bottle of sunscreen and a bottle of water. We set off, sans ladies (who were setting a more liesurely pace between towns), on the Via dell'Amore.
Obstacle!
Since the Via dell'Amore is the easiest of the between-town walks, wide enough to accommodate baby strollers and with a bar in the middle of the path, it's also by far the most crowded. We waited in line and presented our Cinque Terre Cards (5.40 euros for one day, covers the trails and local bus and train services) and were finally on our way!
Notwithstanding the crowding, the views from the Via dell'Amore are spectacularly pretty.
Much of the trail is made up of covered walkways, marred by the pervasive Italian graffiti problem.
This picture's for you, Dad.
It took us about a half-hour to reach Manarola, where we visited a tiny museum devoted to sciacchetra and bought some tasty gelato. Fior de latte (of course!) supplemented by nougat and a nummy banana cinnamon flavor.
We also wandered into a shop to buy farinata (sooz, you can totally eat this - it's just chickpea flour!) and focaccia with lotsa onions. Liguria is apparently crazy for chickpeas/garbanzos, and they use the flour to make farinata pancakes.
These were... pretty good? REALLY greasy - if you pushed your thumb into the farinata, oil pooled up around it. I was glad we were planning to do a lot of walking! (Ahem... we also bought a bottle of frizzante Chardonnay, produced somewheres in Liguria. It helped with grease-cutting.)
Healthfully fed, we started our merry way towards Corniglia.
Just outside of Manarola are some very, very inviting swimming rocks. Most of the towns don't have beaches, per se (Monterosso being an exception) so it's all about finding a mostly flat rock.
We got a nice view of Manarola from the path out of town to Corniglia.
I was much more enamoured of the walk to Corniglia. It started out a little intense, but very soon flattened out into a trail with spectacular views, negligible graffiti, and very few people.
This path takes less than an hour. Just before you reach Corniglia, you have the option of turning towards the station to catch a bus up Corniglia's steep hill, or taking just under 400 stairs up to town.
Given that we had just eaten a 12,000 calorie piece of farinata, we went for the stairs. With a couple of breaks.
OK - I know those stairs look really crowded, but it was a momentary thing - I think a train was leaving soon.
So, before we leave for Rome on Friday - the second half of our Cinque Terre weekend, including drinking wine out of a pitcher, eating anchovy casserole, and more farinata. Better this time.
Til then - ciao!
girlie
