Meet the bread lady, last minute decision to go to Cinque Terre, long day in the throng of over tourism.
The Bread Lady
We had read about the Borgo bread lady on the HGV owners group on Facebook. She drives into the resort around 9am, and she sells bread and pastries out of the back of her car. She probably has a full bakery and makes the rounds in the morning. We got a couple croissants and some focaccia (which was still warm!) for a total of maybe 7 euros (Village Bakery in Flagstaff charges that per ‘croissant’ – hardly seems fair), so that was a good start of the day.
As we were waiting for the bread lady, we heard that there was rain in the forecast for Thursday so we decided to not stay back and go to Cinque Terre today. The only issue is that I have no clue about what is even there, and by the time we were finished with our breakfast it was already 10:30. We did not let that hold us back so we hopped into the car. The DeNiros had told us that the best Cinque Terre experience is to park in Lerici (pronounced LEH-ree-chee, not luh-REE-chee) and take the hop-on-hop-off boat to the villages.
Alternate Plans
We found the parking in Lerici and walked to the water. The guy at an info booth was very helpful in telling us all about the boat service. The way we understood the situation, this boat would be going back and forth every ten minutes or so, but as it turns out there are just 5 of them over the course of a day, and it takes like 2 hours to get to the last of the 5 Terre. If we wanted to see all 5 of them, there was just barely enough time left to get on the boat, drive that to the end, and then just stay on the boat to get back. This would get us on the last boat back into Lerici at 7pm, but we would not be able to stop at any of them. We were simply too late to see all 5 of the Terre, so we had to make a choice where to stop. It took a lot more discussion than I need to write up, but we decided to just do two stops – first at Riomaggiore (the first of the 5 Terre), take the boat back to Porto Venere (pronounced Porto VEH-neh-reh, not veh-NEE-ray, and it’s not even one of the Terre), walk around, take the last boat back to Lerici.
The next boat out wouldn’t leave until 2:30 so we had plenty of time to get some lunch. As we were walking into the restaurant we found the DeNiros already sitting there. Seems like we are in synch with these guys, and they invited us to join them for lunch. They obviously went through the same discussion as we did, and to make a long story short we decided to join their plan for the day – take the boat to Rio Maggiori, walk to Manarola, find something to eat, take the train back to La Spezia, taxi back to Lerici. Lunch was a pizza diavola (spicy salami) and cold beers, very tasty. Don’t remember the name of the restaurant but there are like two dozen of them right on the water in Lerici,
Over the Water
We got one-way tickets to Riomaggiore, which meant switch boats in Porto Venere. K DeNiro (the daughter, who has adopted us as siblings) was able to get off the boat again to hop into a store and buy a bottle of cold wine. This was some sort of dare for her because her dad (M, our tour guide for the day) had told her ‘no’ and that means two different things to them :). Good for us because everybody got a cup of wine on the next leg on the water.
We arrived in Riomaggiore, onto a TINY dock, more like a little path outcropping of rock that juts out of a super steep rock face of the Italian coast. I thought I had the whole arrival on video with narration, but forgot to press ‘record’. It looked REALLY harrowing though, that cannot be the safest way to disembark in the world.
The walk into the village was very idyllic but at the same time we were walking into town with about 7 million of our closest friends. It’s kind of amazing how you can be in this super nice place that the entire world wants to see, and you end up being rustled through these places like cattle. You don’t get an authentic experience, everything is SO expensive, the locals look at you with this peculiar mix of disdain and utter disgust, and it seems to be a sport to confuse the hell out of the tourists, or at least make them feel like every question is fucking stupid. For sure food for thought when we get back to FLG, because I am not always too willing to be gracious to visitors to our town.
Over the Land
Our tour guide (M DeNiro) had been to this place before, so he took us to the footpath to the next town over, which is called Manarola. We got to the path where we were stopped by a guard. Turns out that you need a ticket. M says ‘but this used to be free’, to which the guard says ‘that was more than ten years ago’ in a not-so-friendly tone of voice. It took more time than I need to write down, but we ended up getting train tickets to Manarola. You can only buy a full ticket to walk to all 5 of them, and we didn’t want to spend 17 euro per person for a 10 minute walk.
It also took WAY more time to actually get there, but we did end up getting to Manarola. We tried to get into K’s favorite restaurant there, but we had to find another place. We had some Tennant beers there and some bruschette. Walked around some in Manarola and took the train back to La Spezia. We were lucky enough to find a van for a taxi, and we ended up back at the parking in Lerici with no issue. K DeNiro rode back with us to the resort, and we got back I think it was around 10 or so.
All in all, today was a wonderful day. We got to see really pretty coastal villages, and actually walk around in a place that you normally only see in pictures. I’m trying not to think of the overtourism and how that ‘ruins’ our experiences, because at the end of the day our experience was not ruined. We were in a wonderful place, with some wonderful company. Not going back here, but I am glad we did go and spend it exactly the way we did. Thanks to the DeNiros for taking us in, we had a great day!