Two-Day Italian Tour

I told you about the first day of my two-day trip to Italy, which involved crossing from coast to coast on a total of three different trains, in my previous post.  In this post, I’ll tell you about my trek down to the Cinque Terre region on the second day of my stay.

Cinque Terre is a coastal region on the western side of Italy just south of Genoa.  It is known for its high cliffs that plunge into a protected marine reserve and its terraced winemaking.  First thing in the morning, I took a bus down to the other train station in Genoa (as opposed to the one I had arrived at the day before) and then caught a train leaving just after 8:00am for the town of Riomaggiore.  The two-hour ride down along the side of the sea was a perfectly pleasant way to begin the day.

When we arrived at Riomaggiore, I learned that most of the cliff trail was closed, except for a small 1.5 kilometer stretch between Riomaggiore and the next village of Manarola. That ended up suiting me just fine as I was a bit pressed for time.  Even though it wasn’t that far of a distance I meandered along the trail for over an hour, at times venturing down steep staircases to the rocks where waves were crashing down below.  It was an incredibly picturesque area, especially once I approached the village of Manarola where colorful houses were perched on the top of the high cliffs overlooking the water.

For much of the hike, I kept running into three rather loud American college students.  I was trying to avoid them, but at one point I ended up on the same rock outcropping as them just before we got to Manarola.  They asked me if I would take their picture and then seemed quite surprised when I spoke back to them in English.  I talked with them for a little while and it turned out they were studying abroad in Verona for a semester.  In the end, they weren’t all that bad and I suppose their noisy exuberance was just an expression of their youthful excitement about being in such a cool place so far from home.  I can’t fault them for that because I was probably just like them when I was their age.

Once I got to Manarola, I walked through the quaint little seaside village and then continued a short distance farther down the path until I reached a locked gate where I had to turn around.  I knew that the next train was departing in about 20 minutes so I decided I should probably head back to Genoa so I would have a little time to look around the city a bit before I had to go board the ferry to Morocco.  On the way back to the train station, I stopped at a shop where I bought some farinata to eat for lunch.  Farinata is a savory pancake made with a base of chickpea flour and topped with cheese.  Apparently it is a local speciality, but to be quite honest I didn’t really care for it.  It was okay, but not something I’d feel compelled to eat again.  I guess it’s good I gave it a shot while I was in Manarola, because it’s always nice to try the local flavor.

I arrived back at the train station and bought my ticket with just minutes to spare before the next train departed.  Since this train didn’t go all the way back to Genoa, I had to get off at the next big town of Monterosso and transfer to another train there.  I only had about 20 minutes in Monterosso, but in that time I managed to walk down to the beach to take some pictures, buy postcards and try the local Cinque Terre wine in a cafe attached to the train station.  I think that was a pretty efficient use of my "layover."  Fortunately I didn’t miss the next train and two hours later, just after 2:30pm, we were rolling back into Genoa.

In retrospect, I think I should have gotten off at the second Genoa station since I wanted to go to the Old Port, but instead I got off at the one where I had boarded in the morning.  I asked a woman at the station how to get down to the port and she said I should take Bus 13 (or 30) on the lefthand side of the neighboring park.  I tried to confirm whether she had said “13” or “30,” but I was still a bit confused a so I wandered into the park where there was an event going under some tents in connection with a local soccer match.  I finally found Bus 30, but it appeared to be the end of the line.  Then a bit later I found the stop for Bus 13, but when I looked at the stops, I didn’t seem to see the one that I wanted.  I did see a street sign pointing to the direction of the port so I decided I would just try to walk all the way there.

After about 20 minutes of walking down a busy street past banks and car dealerships, I finally made it to the waterfront.  However, it was clearly not the part of the port that I wanted.  It turns out Genoa is a lot larger than I thought.  There was a big building with a sign reading “Genoa Feria” and I wondered if that was where I was supposed to get the ferry later, but then I realized “feria” meant “fair” and that it was actually a big convention center.  I walked toward the water where I saw some small (and some large) yachts, but there didn’t seem to be any way to go farther along the harbor by foot.  Set back a bit from the water was a major freeway so I couldn’t even walk along that to get where I wanted to go.  By this point, it was after 3:30pm and I realized I should get back to my hostel to pick up my bags so I could head down to the ferry.  Since I just missed the bus I needed, I ended up having to walk all the way back to the train station where I took a bus back up the hill.

I accidentally spent longer than anticipated at the hostel, between trying to send some e-mails and get directions from the staff member there.  I had planned to leave by 4:30pm, but by the time I left it was nearly 5:00pm.  I had still assured myself that I would have plenty of time to catch the boat.  The bus came fairly quickly, but I had to change buses once I got to the center of town in order to get to the port.  I figured out where I was supposed to get off to transfer, but as I was waiting at the stop, I didn't see the bus I needed on the electronic timetable.  I walked over to the list of bus times and realized the bus I was supposed to take didn’t run on Saturdays.  I now had no idea how to get to the port so I hopped on the first bus going to the train station where I knew I could at least get in a cab.  I had really wanted to get gelato one last time before leaving Italy, but I realized there just wasn’t time as it was nearly 5:30pm by the time I got to the station.

Once I was in a taxi, it didn’t take too long to get to the port.  However, after we arrived the driver had to circle around once because he realized he couldn't drop me off right at the entrance.  He brought me to the outside of a terminal where I saw an automated machine to check in for the ferry.  By now it was 5:45pm and the boat was leaving in 15 minutes.  The machine didn't appear to be working so I just went out to the dock with my printed ticket, but the security guard told me I needed to go upstairs to the Grandi Navi Veloci desk.  I ran back inside and up the escalator where I got my boarding pass with about ten minutes to spare.  Once I was back outside, it was still another five-minute walk along the pier to where my ferry was docked.  I raced along ramps and down stairways until I got to the passenger entrance of the ferry just before 6:00pm.  I gave the security officer my passport and ticket, but then of course he asked me whether or not I had gone through immigration.  I obviously had not and had no idea where it even was.  I was about to hit panic mode, but then he told me to follow him to a car live parked nearby.  I was assuming the car was going to drive me to immigration, but instead an officer just got out and stamped my passport, finally clearing me to board.  I got on the boat just in time, but learned my lesson that boarding a ferry boat is more like boarding an airplane than a train.  You can’t just show up ten minutes ahead of time and expect it's going to be completely smooth sailing (no pun intended.)