La Spezia and the Cinque Terre

Our latest destination is La Spezia. Our main purpose for visiting here was to use it as a base for trips to the Cinque Terre.

But it is quite a nice little city in its own right and we'll explore it further today. More to come later on that.

The Cinque Terre are a group of 5 villages that cling to the north western coastline of Italy. It's rugged and beautiful here and the houses and buildings really do seem to cling for dear life to the cliffs and steep slopes. They are a blend of pastel colours and look gorgeous sitting amid green hillsides of grapes above the green-blue sea. Yet another place we are visiting that is on the Unesco World Heritage list for its uniqueness and beauty. (is uniqueness a word?)

So far the weather has been kind and we've had mainly blue skies and sunshine.

We arrived on Friday from Florence and frankly we wish we had spent only 4 days in Florence and a week here instead of the other way around. There is so much to see here and it's all beautiful.

In addition to the Cinque Terre villages there are other lovely towns and villages to visit as La Spezia sits in the Gulf of Poets. But....getting back to our arrival on Friday.

We arrived at La Spezia Central Station at around 2.30pm. It was warm and sunny and we had already programmed the address we were staying at into Google Maps so clicked the start button and let it guide us. You'd think that after our other failures with Google Maps that we would have learned by now.....but no. With Lizzie in the lead we go down the street from the station and around a roundabout and into an area of shops and apartments. A glance at the iPad shows we are about half way to our destination. We trudge on and Lizzie says "OK looks like we're here".

I look at the iPad and sure enough, according to Google we have arrived at our destination. But the numbers on the doors here are in the one hundreds and we are meant to be at 319. Note to self - next time use your eyes and own judgement and don't rely only on Google. We retrace our steps back along the streets to the halfway point and there is 319. It's a five storey building in a long row of other similar buildings but according to our booking we are staying in a cabin in a garden. We enter 319 and go through to the back and sure enough there is a garden and to one side is our accommodation. It looks like a converted greenhouse, but is actually very nice inside and well equipped. A sitting/dining room with chairs, table, fridge and lounger and a bedroom with double bed, chairs, desk, wash basin and an en-suite with toilet and shower. It'll do nicely.

We had a quick look around the block, found a small supermarket and bought a few essentials (beer, wine and nibbles and fruit and yoghurt for breakfast) and then called into one of the many pavement cafes along our street for pasta (for me) and a risotto (for Liz) and coffee and hot chocolate. Reasonable portions, good prices - the food was 6 euros each - compared to Florence prices it is about half the price here.

Saturday we headed off to the train station to buy our day passes for the Cinque Terre. For 17 euros each you can ride the train all day and get on and off at will.....or at any of the villages that make up the Cinque Terre. The ticket claims that part of the benefit of the Cinque Terre card is that you get free use of "pay" toilets along the way. The reality is that most of the pay toilets have a sign on them....usually hand written.....stating that this particular toilet is NOT part of the free listing.

Another thing to remember is.....that the ticket is not legal until it has been put into one of the green verification machines on the station - before getting on the train. The machine stamps the time and day and then the ticket is legal for a period of 24 hours.

Now, we stamped our ticket and got on and off at 3 different stations and were never once asked to produce our ticket. Is it worth travelling without a ticket? Yes unless you get caught and it's an immediate 200 euro fine. We did notice a number of young north African youths on all trains we have been on here in Italy and also in Germany - who travel without tickets/without paying. They get on the trains and immediately lock themselves in the toilet cubicle and do not emerge until they hear their destination station called on the loud speakers. Very clever of them getting free rides, but when there are a lot of them, it means that there are NO toilets available for paying passengers on the train at all.

After one particularly uncomfortable journey I wished I had some superglue to weld shut for ever the toilet door behind which a fare dodging youth was hiding. With stretched bladders we jumped off the train to use the pay toilets at the station at 1 euro each. When you're on a tight budget like us - we're not flush with money. (pun intended!)

Back to the Cinque Terre.....because of the terrain that these villages are built on.......steep and hilly, with lots of steps.....we were not sure how long my knee would last so decided to limit ourselves to 3 of the five villages. After watching Rick Steve's Travel show on Youtube we decided that the most picturesque were Vernazza, which is the 4th farthest from La Spezia, Manarola which is 2nd closest and Riomaggiore which is the closest to La Spezia and were our three of choice.

We got a reasonably early train 8.53am from La Spezia and found that there were a lot of other tourists who had also come early. Fortunately most got off at Riomaggiore so we had the train pretty much to ourselves by the time we reached Vernazza.

If you Google a photo of the Cinque Terre, chances are it will show you a photo of the village of Vernazza. It's bloody lovely!

It's very steep terrain, but the buildings and the landscape in general are so picturesque that I never even felt a twinge in my knee I was too busy going "WOW" and taking photos. The ocean here is blue-green and so clear you can see the rocks on the bottom and fish swimming around. Instead of following the few other tourists who got of the train at Vernazza and headed down toward the little harbour, we climbed up.... I don't know how many uneven stone steps, past the clock tower and up past the church to an amazing viewpoint high above the bay. The view and the photos we got were well worth the climb and we were still happy even when we found out that there was a pathway we could have used to get up here instead of all those steps.

After maybe 10 minutes marveling at the view, we headed down to the harbour. The view looking up was just as good as the view looking down. Really beautiful and well worth the cost of the train even if we didn't go on to see anywhere else.

We bought a couple of slabs of focaccia bread - mine with olives and salt and Lizzies with pesto and tomato and sat on the little harbour wall, eating this local delicacy and people watched for a while. The buildings here are mostly well maintained and are all in soft pastel colours. The council have the final say on what colour your house is painted if you want to change the colour.

There's a little church on the harbour and you can go in....free of charge.....and take photos. Thumbs up from me!

Next stop Manorola. So we begin the climb up to the railway station and use the only free toilet (as far as we're aware) in the Cinque Terre.

During the summer season, the trains between the villages run quite regularly so you don't usually have to wait for more than 20 minutes for a train going in your direction.

Because of the steep terrain, the railway runs through a series of long tunnels through the mountain side, emerging long enough to give a promising glimpse of the scenery outside, before once again plunging into another tunnel.

In a few minutes we are at Manarola. From the railway station you look down over the village. It's not the best view from here.

We walk down the winding central lane to the sea and round to the right along a cliff path. From here, looking back are where the best views of Manarola can be enjoyed. From the cliff path it's a very pretty village with large rock formations in the sea below on which people are sunbathing and swimming from. Again the same blue-green sea and crystal clear water as round at Vernazza.

The buildings are pink, orange and yellow. With the sun shining on them they look amazing. Naturally I squeeze off a number of photos in the hope that just one of them will do the place justice. It's very pretty, but still I like Vernazza the best.

We find a bar/cafe for a cold beer - relief from the heat of the sun. We've already had drinks of cold water from a spring on the cliff path so are already partially rehydrated. Bar Gelateria Paninoteca Enrica has a wooden frontage but no glass in it so you're inside but outside. The tourists are coming thick and fast now as it's around mid day and everyone has hit the Cinque Terra trails.

The waiter brings us our drinks - a half litre of cold beer for me and a bottle of Moretti Radler for Lizzie.....along with complementary corn chips and roasted peanuts.....which was a nice touch. To say that this place is a tourist trap, the prices were not as steep as I expected. 5 euros for my beer and 4 for Lizzie's Radler.

We sit here for about a half hour watching the tourists come and go. Young and old, fat and thin, black and white. All kinds of folk are visiting the 5 villages today.

Down on the rocks below the village the sun worshippers are out in force wearing the smallest swimsuits they can fit into. Quite nice to see on a slender 18 year old.....not so nice on an overweight 60 plus year old. The word "Flossing" comes to mind. And yes....I know it's not PC to say that but I really don't care.

We emerge from the bar and slowly weave our way back up the slope toward the station, pausing in a couple of shops for Lizzie to look at clothes and pottery.

And we're on the train to Riomaggiore the final of our selection of 3 villages for todays excursion. Within moments we have arrived.

From the train station Riomaggiore is nothing to write home about. There are a few buildings on the hillside above the station and nothing below but the sea. There are a couple of bars/eateries and that's it. Talk about disappointed!

What I didn't realise is that Riomaggiore is on two sides of a headland. The station is on one side and around the corner on the other side of the headland is the main part of the village......and it's lovely.

From the station there are two ways to get to the main village. The easy way is to walk through a tunnel from one side of the headland to the other. OR you could do what we did and trek around the headland on the coastal path in the heat of the sun. Which from a photographers point of view was the best way to go. I got some reasonable shots of the village as it came into view from around the cliffside and we also got to see the outside and inside of a nice little church on the way around (again no fee and ok to take photos - thank you Cinque Terre!).

By now I have to admit I was starting to struggle with walking and Lizzie was quite concerned and suggested we turn back, get on the train and find a nice cold beer somewhere. As tempting as cold beer is, I was more keen to get down to sea level in the heart of the village so we pressed on......down and down.....until we emerged in a tiny harbour at the bottom of the slope.

Again there were a few little shops to tempt the tourists and bars/cafes and of course the pastel coloured buildings and beautiful seas.

A few more photos were taken and we were about to begin the climb back to the cliff path, when we discovered the tunnel back to the station. What a godsend that was.

In no time at all we were back on a train and back in La Spezia. Time for crackers, cheese, salami, sun-dried tomatoes, olives....and of course wine and beer in our little garden cabin. A nice end to a great day.

Sunday arrives and my knee doesn't want to work. So we decide to have a quiet day here in La Spezia. We walk the 350 metres to the train station and book our tickets for Tuesdays journey to Nice. There are queues out the door almost in the ticket office. There are 4 windows operating and people both sides of the glass are losing their tempers. It was nice to be able to take a step back and watch the action without getting sucked into it ourselves. After a long wait in line, we finally got to our window - the lady behind the glass looked frazzled - having just taken a load of verbal abuse from her last customer. We were polite and cheery and thanked her ever so much for helping us with our ticket and actually left her with a smile on her face.

Next stop the Museo Civico "Amedeo Lia" - we're having a museum day. The idea is to put less pressure on my aching knees - although quite how were meant to achieve that by wandering the many rooms and many floors of museums is beyond me.

We have an option. We can pay 7 Euro to go into this one museum OR we can pay 12 euro and have the option of visiting another 7 museums in the next 48 hours. Never one to shirk a challenge we opt for the 12 euro ticket.

The Lia is interesting but not my kind of thing really. The building dates back to the 17th century and was once the property of the Paolotti Friars. It consists of 13 halls and houses a collection of Italian paintings ranging from the 13th to the 18th century, plus miniatures, pages of illuminated lettering and religious artifacts.

From here we headed for CAMeC - the public museum of modern and contemporary art - focusing on 20th century art plus emerging artists.

Although the museum was much smaller than the first one, I enjoyed this more as there was a photography section - which is what I am into.

The "modern art" was interesting..... as in I am curious why anyone would ever want a painting like that on their wall. Most of the gallery was dedicated to the works of one man and his work bored me so senseless that I can't even remember his name and even more - I can't be bothered to look it up. How one man can turn out so much "crap" in a lifetime is mind blowing. BUT in a perverse way I enjoyed this gallery as it provoked me, where as the Lia was just nice displays of ancient art. The CAMeC museum actually has thousands of art works in storage and brings them out in rotation along with special exhibitions......we just fell unlucky to witness the "ART" of this one forgetable guy.

By now Lizzie was just about eating her arm off. Hungry doesn't begin to describe it so we walked back toward our lodgings and found a nice little pizza/pasta place along the street. We ordered a couple of cold beers - a big one for me and a small one for Lizzie and read our way through the extensive menu before deciding on a pizza for me with cherry tomatoes, basil and mozzarella and for Lizzie pene pasta with salmon and a side salad. Delicious and filling.

However it didn't stop us calling into a pastry shop on the walk back for a couple of fruity tarts (and I'm not talking about the ladies behind the counter!) which we saved for our afternoon tea.

After an hour and a half rest we were off again to another museum....or two.

This time we tried the Museum Civico del Sigillo, where we saw all kinds of seals. Not the ones that swim in the sea and eat fish, but the seals that were used to seal letters etc through the ages. Sounds boring as hell doesn't it? Surprisingly it was quite interesting. Some of the seals were beautifully carved from wood or ivory, others cast in various metals or even glass. These ranged from the 4th millennium BC to modern day. It seemed that the older they were, the more intricate. More art and workmanship in the old ones and more functionality in the newer ones.

And then to the Palazzina delle Arti L.R.Rosaia - where, among other things, we saw some cartoon drawings from an Italian satirist. Although we couldn't understand some of the words, the pictures more than made up for it and were quite humorous.

And here ends Sunday. One day left and then off to France.

Monday morning comes and we're off to have a look at the castle on the hill here. Castello S. Giorgio sits on a hilltop overlooking the city of La Spezia. This castle and museum are part of the combined ticket we bought yesterday so we're really getting our moneys worth. It opens on Monday mornings at 10.30am.....but is closed in the afternoon so off we go.

There are a number of ways up to the castle.....mainly involving climbing hundreds of steps......or steep streets. I wasn't looking forward to it.

But we found an easy way......taking an elevator and then a funicular. This method put us right outside the castle leaving about a dozen steps up to the entrance. AWESOME!

We were the first customers of the day and had the museum and then the castle its self to ourselves. The views from the top are good, but could have been better/clearer had it been earlier in the day. By now it was 11 o'clock and the day had turned very hazy.

Still at least we didn't have to climb up all those steps!

The castle was started in the 13th century but has been added to or modified many times over the centuries. The museum has been in existence since 1873 but was originally situated in the town below and moved several times before ending up at the castle. It's not a huge collection.....pottery and coins from the Roman times....pieces of masonry with carvings......rusty old daggers and helmets. But is is nicely displayed. I can't show you how nicely it is displayed however, as there was no photography allowed at all in the museum......only in the castle grounds.

It's the only museum that we went in, in La Spezia, which was part of the special price combined ticket, that didn't allow photography inside. All the rest......no problem as long as you didn't use the flash.

After the castle we tried to get a look in a nearby church but it was all locked up. There were blankets and other belongings near the door of the church indicating that the homeless were using it as a place to sleep....along with empty cans, bottles, litter strewn everywhere and graffiti on the walls. Such a pity. So instead we decided to head for the seafront and have a walk by the marina.

La Spezia is a bit tired in places.....it's a working city.....has docks on the sea front and a large marina. There are gardens along the seafront separating the buildings from the marina....but these too are a little tired and neglected. We had a nice walk through them though as the trees provided welcome shade from the mid day sun. As far as i can tell there is no beach here as such....you have to go further round the coast for that.

The apartment buildings however are much nicer presented than those of say Florence. Brightly painted with well maintained shutters, most of them look a real picture in the sunshine.

There are lots of bars and cafes in the streets and lane-ways, so you'll never go hungry as long as you can afford what's on the menu. Some cafes include a cover charge of a couple of euro each for sitting at their tables.....some don't. There's no way of knowing without actually asking before you sit down......otherwise you find out when you get your bill.....and then they expect a tip!

And so we near the end of our final day here. If we'd had another couple of days we'd have paid a visit to Lerici or Portovenere.....but time is up. We must now pack our bags again in readiness for our train trip to Nice. C'est la vie!

More photos will be posted on my facebook page

https://www.facebook.com/malcfrost

#train #LaSpezia #CinqueTerre #Italy #GulfofPoets #Vernazza #Manarola #Riomaggiore #RickSteves #pastel #CastelloDGiorgio #combinedmuseumticket #museum #MuseoCivicoAmedeoLia #CAMeC #pasta #pizza #PaolottiFriars