Tales of an Amorphic Destiny

Italy: Cinque Terre to Bari

June 30th, 2009 at 05:19pm James

Maybe it’s due to Sarah’s Triestino heritage that we’ve always loved visiting Italy, even (or especially??) with its run-down appearance and total lack of any decent organisation. Hey, if it kind of works why change things, right? Have a pizza (probably preceded and followed by several other tasty courses), enjoy a few glasses of wine or a rich espresso and think about it some other time right?!….Haha!

After crossing the French/Italian border we drove directly to Cinque Terre, a place we’ve been meaning to visit since our first trip to Italy back in 2003. Meaning literally “Five Terraces”, Cinque Terre is a group of five gorgeous little Italian villages set into the hillside along a beautiful stretch of Italy’s north-west coast.

The villages are linked by a well-trodden track of about 12km, which we planned to walk at least part of. After a short train ride in to the first village of Monterosso, we ran from the station around to the old harbour just it in time to catch the next ferry along the coast.

It was lovely riding out on the deck in the sunshine, but we were fortunate not to have been boarding or disembarking at the second village of Vernazza. The heaving swell around the tiny dock made for an exciting dash along the gangplank for several passengers – Italian health and safety at its precarious best!

We got to the last village of Riomaggiore and spent the rest of the day enjoying a beautiful hike back along the coast. After walking the first kilometre known as “lover’s lane” in the hot Sun, we stopped to cool down with a swim off the rocks in the deep blue water at Manarola – very pretty!

The swim and subsequent walk was good for the appetite and just past the village of Corniglia a picnic of antipasto, foccacia and cold Moretti beer was just the thing! We strolled into Vernazza some time later, having decided to skip the last stretch to Monterosso as night was closing in. That and we were buggered.

With a bus timetable that could only exist in Italy, (certain buses only running on certain, seemingly random days of the month) we found ourselves walking an extra 3km from the station back to our campground. But this turned out to be a blessing in disguise when we saw the first of many fireflies, (or “fairy bugs” as Sarah calls them). It was hard to believe at first, but then we saw another and then another. We were in awe of these little flying beetles, their arses flashing on and off like little light globes on a Christmas tree. They made the extra walk totally surreal and very worthwhile.

After Cinque Terre we continued into Tuscany with stops in San Gimignano and Sienna. Both were very touristy and with good reason, being that they are both so picturesque, their buildings all coloured in shades of brown and “burnt Sienna”. San Gimignano in the Tuscan countryside has retained 13 of its 72 fortified towers as well as its historic Duomo, where they insisted Sarah cover her shoulders with a bright blue paper cloth out of reverence despite the Cathedral housing some of the most debauched artworks we’ve ever seen inside a church!

In Sienna we recognised the location (Piazza del Campo) of the famous horse race, as seen at the start of the James Bond movie “Quantum of Solace”. The race was only a week away and the sand track in the Piazza was already being prepared.

The town’s gothic Duomo was also very impressive with its unusual facade of striped black and white marble. And to top things off, after a particularly delicious sandwich constructed from supermarket supplies, (foccacia, basil, mozarella, prosciutto and tomatoes) we decided that this area has the sweetest, tastiest tomatoes EVER!!!

We stopped overnight a little north of Rome at Lake Bracciano, where we sat on the lake shore watching a storm roll in. It’s only fair to mention that Sarah managed to photograph a flash of lightning even after repeatedly being told she would never capture it with our measly automatic camera.

Then we headed into central Naples, to a little pizzeria called Da Michele for supposedly the best pizza in the world. We’ve both had pizza we liked more but it’s easy to see why they have the title – even the Italians were queuing for tables.

Having the Sunny filled with our belongings parked in the middle of Mafia land made us a tad nervous. So after our pizza we quickly continued on towards the Amalfi coast and found ourselves a campground with its own section of private beach (pebbles of course)!

Driving along the Amalfi coast on a sunny Sunday maybe wasn’t our best idea, but gave us a real insight to the lengths Italians will go for a day at the “beach”. Parking spots tended to be at the top of cliffs on extremely narrow roads – how some of them got down onto the actual beaches is anyone’s guess. We didn’t actually stop other than to take a photo here and there (cliffs plunging down towards the ocean) as there wasn’t anywhere to park – and I mean ANYWHERE!!

Italians tend to be quite creative when it comes to parking but we couldn’t even spot a place to do an “Italian park”. So we continued on to Matera, driving past a lot of seriously giant lemons!

The town of Matera is utterly unique and almost indescribable. It is known primariy for the “sassi”, hundreds of stone houses carved out of the caves and cliffs that comprise the town’s two ravines.

From the 1800’s, an explosion in population led to drastic overcrowding and horrendous conditions, with the desperately poor inhabitants living in these carved houses without electricity, sewers, or running water. The situation finally reached a head in the 1950’s, when the Italian government forcibly moved 15,000 of the sassi’s inhabitants to new housing.

Wandering around the almost-deserted sassi is quite eerie. The roads are cobbled and there’s little vegetation, just a mass of brown, stone-carved buildings in various states of disrepair. Some parts of the sassi have been cleaned up and are now being used as businesses or once more as homes after a bit of modernisation. Though there were still signs of people living in buildings that definitely looked like they should still be abandoned. A very odd place indeed.

Then it was time to head to the Italian port town of Bari for our overnight ferry to Dubrovnik in Croatia. Only those who have experienced Italian organisation at its worst would be able to comprehend a port run by Italians. Imagine a 15-car-wide bottleneck trying to fit through a 2-car-wide gate. We soon came to understand why they suggest arriving at least 3 hours prior to departure during peak season!

Finally on board, for some reason the crew insisted on cranking up the air conditioning. Even wearing all our clothes and wrapped in sleeping bags, it was a cold night indeed sleeping on the floor of the ferry…

There’s more photos from our jaunt across Italy here.

Entry Filed under: Europe