Florence to the Cinque Terre

Riomaggiore, Cinque Terre, Italy

The first week of a sustained if wavering sun this March and we headed to the Cinque Terre, to the lucid, blade-sharp light of the Mediterranean.  Just what the doctor ordered after the haze of a long Florentine winter.  Riomaggiore I greeted with sharp intakes of breath, as much for the views of the town from the road as for the road itself – steep, narrow, winding and taken with typical speed and nonchalance by F.

Manarola, Cinque Terre

We drove on to Manarola for the choice of two towns to walk to, perhaps Corniglia, but the path being closed, Riomaggiore, and at 25 minutes on the fully-paved if graffiti-littered Via dell’Amore, by far the easier walk.  There were few people around – dilettante hikers like ourselves, locals with their backs welded to the cliff and their eyes to the water.  Benches lined the path, as did early spring flowers, and all around the deep-breath inducing openness of the sea and sky.

As at Manarola we had full run of the streets, which were boat-lined, sleepy-catted, and festooned with laundry out to dry.  After a cursory wander we sunned ourselves lizard-like on a pebble-sharp slab of rock and listened to the waves around us, sharing the space with a sharp-eyed gull and a fishing boat on the horizon.  I timed a plate of the local anchovies and glasses of the local white at A Pié de Mà exactly, and suspended over the Ligurian Sea, watched the sun sink into the water.  On the Via dell’Amore at dusk, with the first of the boats spreading its nets, most likely for anchovies, twinkling in the sea below; and as another rippled the surface of the sea in its wake; and the light striking at cliff, coast and hillside darkened, a town ahead – perhaps Vernazza – flickered its lights on in the distance.

Dusk on Via dell'Amore

From A Piè de Mà, Via dell'Amore