For the record, and without apology, we were not, strictly speaking, in Cinque Terre today.
So, where are we? I learned a lot about this region today. First we are in Liguria. The most famous and largest city, is Genova. I have at least one great-grandparent who was born in this region. My maternal grandmother, who was born near Rome, talked about it as if it were another country. In spite of this, she did learn to make pesto from her mother-in-law, who would have grown up eating it as a regional dish.
We are in the same region as Genova, but we are further south. The province south of Genova, called La Spezia, which is also the name of the second largest city in this region, has a beautiful coastline and lots of little towns. A specific five make up Cinque Terre (Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazzo, and Monterosso). Meanwhile, there are other towns on the Ligurian sea– like Le Grazie and the charming Portovenere. We started and ended our day in Portovenere, and in between had a sweet hike on Isla Palmaria.
To get to the island, inhabited by twenty-two people, we took a short ferry ride. Once there, our hike was up a mule path,named the convict path, after the poor souls who had to work along it day after day. The mules and convicts were in service to building a very large fort, in the 1870s. It was in use as a fort through WWII. I suspect hiking the path was the best part of their day, because the stone work of the fort was amazing, and had to have been hard duty.
When the fort was built, Italy had just become unified as one country. (Today I heard that described as “the north conquered the south.”) The republic consolidated the navy in the north, and it is still the location of the Italian navy. Italy’s navy has a flag that incorporates the flags of Genova, Venice, Pisa and Amalfi, the four historic, and northern maritime regions. In truth, areas of the south had had fantastic navies too (Sicily is an island after all), but conquerers tell the history, so…
After the great hike, we had a delicious Italian lunch at Locanda Lorena. “The best restaurant on the island,” was the often repeated joke as it is the only restaurant on the island. It really was delicious, though. The walls were full of celebrity photos and I snapped the one with Giuseppe, the founding owner, with Barbra Streisand (I’m a fan) and Michelle Obama (I’m a fan.)
We spent at least an hour touring Portovenere after taking the little ferry back from the island. See the gallery below. I’ve had internet struggles and won’t be able to describe tonight.
