Visitation hours are Ending

Four posts in a week and a half??? Wow. Anyway, let's get to it:

The thursday the week the family was here, (March 17th) was the 150^th Anniversary of the unification of Italy by King Vittorio Emmanuele II of Sardegna, so I didn’t have class. This allowed us to head out to the Cinque Terre first thing that morning. We got in to Monterosso al Mare (the farthest north of the Cinque Terre) around 11 and checked in to our hotel right on the water. Here is the view from our window:

We decided to get to know the town of Monterosso a little better so we wandered around for a few hours and saw the city. When we got back down to the main square we a community band gathered and a crowd of people watching them. After waiting a few minutes, the ceremony started and a Monterossan gave a speech about the unification of Italy back in 1861, and how awesome it was that Italy was still a unified nation. After his speech, the band started to play and a local elementary school choir started to sing. It was pretty awesome. That night we went to a restaurant recommended by Rick Steves and got delicious Monterossan food and some awesome Cinque Terre wine, and were the only people in the whole restaurant. We had come to the Cinque Terre before tourist season really began, so the whole town was pretty empty. Some hotels were still closed and a few restaurants hadn’t opened for the year either, so the town was pretty quiet. It was nice but weird at the same time to be the ONLY people in the restaurant, especially because we might have interrupted the family dinner of the owners when we came in. After dinner we headed down to the beach and looked out on the water. Beautiful. Then headed over to the jetty off the shore, and looked over at the shoreline of Monterosso, all illuminated and breathtaking and stuff. And that was our first day in the Cinque Terre.

For Friday we planned to hike the 7km (or mile, not sure which but its 7 of something) trail connecting each of the 5 towns of the Cinque Terre: Monterosso à Vernazza à Corniglia à Manarola à Riomaggiore. We got up bright and early and started our hike at 9. We headed up the trail without getting our ticket, because I assumed there would be some sort of ticket counter once we really got on the trail, a bit outside of Monterosso. This was not the case. We kept on trekking anyway, up the endless stairs of the most grueling part of the hike (according to Rick Steves) and saw very few other people on the way. At parts the path was so thin that the side of your foot would be hanging over a cliff. It was awesome. The whole walk to Vernazza was awesome, grueling and beautiful. The views were incredible the entire way:

Monterosso

Cliffs outside of Vernazza

Vernazza

We walked pretty quickly through Vernazza and headed up to the next part of the trail, from Vernazza to Corniglia. This was the view looking back:

Currently the background on my computer

We looked again for a ticket office but the only one we saw was closed, and it didn’t look like it was opening any time soon. We decided to keep on going once again. The trail continued to be all of the adjectives mentioned above, but slightly less horribly strenuous. Along the way we saw a few stray cats…

who were apparently being fed through the generosity of whoever happened to walk down the trail. We saw signs asking for people to leave food for the cats if they had any to give, and it seemed to be working.

When we got to the end of the trail at Corniglia, we saw an open ticket booth and decided to finally buy a ticket. We found out then that all the trails we had just hiked, along with the one from Corniglia to Manarola, were closed due to landslides. We had managed to hike on the three more dangerous ones because the ticket booths were all closed and there was no signage indicating that there was the possibility of being crushed by falling rocks while hiking due to the recent inundating rains that the Cinque Terre had endured. It was worth the risk. So now that we knew we weren’t allowed to be hiking the trails, we had to take the train to skip what would have been the most boring one anyway, and got off at Manarola to walk the Via dell’Amore, or the original Lovers’ Lane. The walk itself didn’t offer as many views as the previous, deadly, three, but the waves crashing on the rocks were mesmerizing:

CRASH

I’m not entirely sure why it’s called the Via dell’Amore, but I do know that there is this statue:

Of two people kissing that people hang locks on and around to symbolize the strength of their love. That’s nice.

But honestly, the Via dell’Amore was nothing special after the Via della Morte (Death’s Lane. My attempt at being witty considering the potential deadliness of the trails we hiked). After lingering there as little as possible we hopped on a train back to Monterosso (10 minutes to get back by train, while we took four hours to get to Riomaggiore, and that was skipping a 2km (mile?) part of the hike). We got some awesome gelato outside the train station and meandered our way back to the hotel to clean up and get ready for dinner.  

We got dinner at a restaurant right on the shore, and it was fantastic. I got a shrimp scampi in pesto sauce (irresistible) and we partook of some more of the fantastic Cinque Terre white wine (pair whites with seafood!) and then got tons of dessert to end. Awesome dinner. Went back to the hotel and slept wonderfully.

Saturday was a quick day in Monterosso; we got breakfast and walked around a bit more, took some family pictures by the sea (which I don't have on my computer) and got gelato before we hopped on the train back to Milano. Got back in Milan around 2 and dropped off our entire luggage at my apartment. Our first order of business? The roof of the Duomo, now that it had finally stopped raining and was just incredibly overcast. We spent a while up there, taking pictures and looking out over the city, and then headed back down to see the cavernous monstrosity that is the inside of the Duomo. It was as big as ever. It might get easier to take in each time I go, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that it is just an enormous place and I will never really grasp the enormousness of it, or of the intricacy of all the tiny tiny details that pepper every inch of every wall. Its just an overwhelmingly intricate building.

View from the top

La Maddonina

After taking in the Duomo, we went to get some Panzerotti from Luini’s Bakery, thus completing the list of essential touristy things to do in Milan. So now that my family had gotten their fill of Milan and of delicious, greasy baked goods with those Panzerotti, it was time for them to head out to Malpensa Airport, to catch their plane back to the states. It was a great visit and I was sad to see them go, but this blog is long enough already so I’m not gonna keep rambling. Hope you didn’t fall asleep reading my ridiculous ramblings! Till next time (who knows then that will be)

Chris

P.S. I took Mom, Dad and Kammeron to one of my favorite gelaterie in Milan, Cioccolati Italiani, but I don’t remember when or which day, so I’m gonna throw it down here. But it was awesome and now I really want gelato.