Vernazza

We slept in on Tuesday morning, ate breakfast at the hostel, and set off on the road toward Vernazza, town 4 of Cinque Terre.  After walking for a few minutes, Nate had the idea to see what happened if we tried hitch-hiking.  So when the next vehicle passed – a tiny pick-up truck with barely the umph to make it up the steep hills – we stuck out our thumbs.  The nice farmer driving it let us climb into the bed of his truck!  So we zoomed up the hills that would have taken us hours to walk.  

The engine was revving loudly, but we made it to a fork in the road where the driver let us out, refusing to take any coins for his trouble.  He said something to the effect of “jkdaos fjksda nfdkas nowndkj Vernazza,” pointing to the path on the left, and “sanogan osdagn owekgks qoasdets San Bernadino, cinco minute!”, pointing us straight forward.  We actually ended up taking the path on the right, which was a foot path towards San Bernadino.  Oh, I forgot to mention the weather.  It wasn’t raining yet, but the hills were immersed in a deep fog.  

As we squelched along the muddy path, we couldn’t see farther than 100 feet ahead.  We made it to the tiny town of San Bernadino, which was completely closed up because of the weather, and headed off for Vernazza.

We had some difference of opinion as to whether we should take the foot path or the road.  Just like last time we were hiking, Nate’s insistence that we keep going on the “path less travelled” turned out to be exciting.  Almost too exciting.  As we traversed the steep slope of rocky switchbacks toward Vernazza, the threatening grumbles of thunder became more frequent.  After a particularly loud one, it started pouring.  

The rain was heavy and wet (thankfully not too cold!).  We were lucky we had reached the outskirts of town by this time, where the paths were mostly stones.  If we had been caught on the muddy hillside, we would probably have slipped off the edge.  We could hear cheers and screams and see camera flashes coming from the train station below as we ran toward Vernazza.  It was epic.  The second time we have become a tourist attraction in and of ourselves in Cinque Terre.  Needless to say, we were soaked by the time we reached the train station, so we just trained back to La Spezia (there wasn’t much to do in Vernazza in the rain) and took the rest of the day to recover from the flash flood. 

We tried the two typically La Spezian dishes – a soup made of garbanzo beans, white beans, and wheat berries, and Farinata: basically a giant pancake made of garbanzo flour.  They were both really good, but probably our favorite treat in La Spezia was churros con nutella y chocolate blanco. 

-A

P.S. to B,J,C:

I write this from the train going to the place where all roads lead.

It’s not the city our family lived in while Wayne was in Elementary School.

It’s not the opposite of “less”.

It’s certainly not the way some Koreans might pronounce the name of the little red monster on Sesame Street.

Can you guess what it is?