Tre delle Cinque Terre

After a very fun but late night on the disco dance floor with the scientists, I woke up to another breakfast on the gorgeous balcony of the Il Ciocco resort before packing up, checking out and catching the hotel bus back to Pisa Airport. While a lot of the other conference-goers had only long flights home to look forward to, my holiday was only just about to begin, and all going well, Ryan would be waiting at Pisa Airport to meet me!

After some slight kerfuffle, I spotted Ryan which was a happy sight indeed! Big smiles and hugs all round! Ryan had already picked up our little rental car so we popped my bag into it (lucky we didn’t have anyone else with us – our bags took up the boot and the back seat!) and we set off!! Just to cap off the excitement, we were headed to my most favourite place in the world, Cinque Terre.

Our favourite balcony

So we wound our way down the roads to Riomaggiore – I know it was only 2 years since we had been here but it felt surprisingly very familiar. And so straight to the place where we had stayed before, we were greeted by Cristina with kisses and her saying welcome back and how we hadn’t changed (thank God?), and up to our glorious room – this time with a bonus little bottle of wine which her husband had made. They don’t sell wine, but Alessandro just makes a small amount from their few vines for their family. Bellissimo!!

So not only was I finally on holiday, in my favourite place in the world, and now with Ryan, but to cap things off it turned out my dear friend Imogen happened to be nearby and would meet us too. Sometimes life is so good I can barely handle it. But hey I can try…  And try we did. We had arranged to meet Imogen “by the water at around 6pm”, which may seem vague but it worked. As I sat in the spot near the boats where I clearly remember sitting on my first night in Riomaggiore two years ago, I looked up and I saw Imo walking down towards us. Hooray! So we immediately found a bar with a great view and celebrated with some Prosecco!

Proseccos with Imo

So our first night was spent catching up over sunset with a ridiculous view, and then  a delicious dinner (pesto pasta and squid - very tipici della regione). In our excitement it was already midnight which meant Australia were about to play their first World Cup game, so hey! We stayed up and watched it! But we lost :(

Sunset in Riomaggiore

 The next morning we met Imo after breakfast, and unfortunately the walking trails were closed, but we could still visit the other villages by boat or train. So we hopped on a train to one of my favourites, Vernazza!

Vernazza

And now for something special: a guest blog from our travelling companion, Imogen. She has even accompanied her words with some of her sketches. Apologies in advance that you have to turn your heads, laptops and/or monitors on their sides to fully appreciate them. I do not currently have the mental or physical capacity to rotate them electronically right now.

Shutters are fun. The day is a surprise; almost always a good one, in Italy (pretty cobblestone streets, rows of pastel flats). Reidi and I had planned to meet at 11 and after some tooing and froing (which included a dip in the calm blue Mediterranean) I was running a tad late... 

Hustle! We achieved our rendezvous and then made our way though the pedestrian tunnel to the train station, where we waited with the masses to visit a new Terre. It was something of a drag that the walking paths were closed; less of a drag that we weren't maimed in an avalanche though I guess...

As it happens, the train ride was something special, with sparkling blue sea to see out the window. In Vernazza we meandered down to the seaside, admired the hearty vessels (ar!), then celebrated our achievements with some local vino!

How lovely! Now back to me. So after a long and beautiful lunch in Vernazza (Caprese salad, and various pastas - squid ink one for me!) on a terrace with 180+ degree views of Vernazza, we then beat the rain which was approaching and hopped on the boat back to Riomaggiore. For our long time fans, this time Ryan did indeed get off the boat.

Welcoming Imogen to our balcony

So we headed back through Riomaggiore and made the climb back up to our place to show Imo what a ridiculous balcony we have. We celebrated with some Champagne which Ryan brought from Paris and some olives from the region. We chatted, admired the view, and Imo whipped up the sketches shown above. What a talented girl she is. Then Imo went back to her place for a shower and siesta, and I did a little bit of work (don't ask) while listening to London Grammar on my favourite balcony. Bliss (minus the work bit).

Shortly before the storm hit

We had booked dinner at A Pie' de Ma which is perched above the water with another ridiculous view, and so met Imo there at 7:30pm. There was a wine degustation option, of 2, 4 or 6 different wines. We were very restrained and went for 4, which was probably wise as if we had chosen 6 we might have needed to place some glasses on the ground which is not a good look. We each had a primi of delicious pasta, but Ryan had ordered a secondi as well. After we had finished our primis, a sudden gust of wind came through and nearly blew all our vini degustazione glasses away! And it just kept coming! We picked up everything we could carry and ran downstairs underneath into the cavern where we managed to share a sheltered table. It was such an amazing storm - about 20 minutes of strong updraft winds, followed by torrential rain. Coincidentally, the last time we had seen with Imogen we had ridden out a wild storm on Cockatoo Island with a bottle of wine!

Manarola

So we hung out watching the storm, and Ryan got his secondi of pesce, and finally the rain eased, so we paid il conto and ran through the cobbled stone streets to watch another midnight World Cup match - Italy vs England!! And the Italianos beat the English, wahoo!!

Manarola

The next day we met up again with Imo - the storm was well gone but it was still overcast, but hey, Cinque Terre is still heaven to me even with grey skies. So after breakfast we hopped the train to my other favourite village, Manarola. We managed to spend about an hour wandering around, up and down the town, around the cliffs an what-not, followed by lunch. I opted for grilled octopus, and we shared a caprese salad again - aw yeah. Such a beautiful town....

Manarola

And then we hopped on the boat back home and stopped by the nearby very pebbly beach for a dip in the Mediterranean. After chilling out for rest of the afternoon, we met up again for our final dinner. It was delicious!! Imo and I had the best pesto pastas - very tipico della regione - and Ryan had an anchovie pasta as well as some fish which they had somehow managed to plait! After dinner we bid a fond ciao to Imo, and hiked the hill back home after what was another magical visit (at least to 3 of the 5 villages). See you next time, Cinque Terre.