Cinque Terre

23/9

Today was really all about a big drive over the alps to the beautiful Cinque Terre, argued to be Italy’s most attractive national park. 

We’d exercised and the kids had worked their magic at school leaving only one remaining job - a big wash up of Ed’s exterior.  Whilst the kids were working, we’d buzzed about inside cleaning & scrubbing, checking on any small repairs and organizing our folder of all important documentation & paperwork, feeling very satisfied with Ed’s condition for sale.

The kids finished their writing whilst the “genitori” (Italian for parents) crawled all over Ed’s outside at one of many, many large car washing outlets. €10 later, once again satisfied, we kicked back for a beautiful drive through really pretty valleys, mountain passes and small towns before stopping for a playground lunch in an even smaller town.  Kel found a wee friend and they gesticulated easily and pushed Snuggy about on a swing, both mothering intensely.  An incredible sculptured story board of the women behind the men who fought for and built free Italy through WW2 stood quietly & artistically at one end of the tiny playground.

Jeff drove on further for a few more hours up and down narrow difficult switch backs whilst the kids read & read and listened to music (Wil listened to the whole PInk Floyd The Wall album amongst other things) and Jen snapped away madly gushing at the scenery.  

It’s interesting that whilst the typical north Italian abode is simply a rendered concrete or stone block/box somehow they are so pretty compared to, for example, the communist box.  We argued the reason to be that are they are free standing despite being closely huddled and painted up in wonderful pinks, reds, yellows, oranges & chocolate colours with their spilling flowers and  often very Christian themed individual decorations.  They aren’t anywhere as pristine & postcard-like as the Austrian or French homes but their charm is in their relative chaos and unpredictability. 

Over the rise was the featureless Med with it’s characteristic lack of horizon exciting whoops of excitement to see the sea!

Finally, we found a wonderful welcoming campsite in Levanto, at the western end of the Cinque Terre stretch, showered and planned tomorrow’s bike ascent.

24/9  CINQUE TERRE - LEVANTO

The bloody church is 1 m (maybe a bit more) behind the camper and bongs a piercing high pitched startling tone for the full hour as well as the quarter hour every 15 minutes - 15 bongs at 12:45!   It tops the list for the most vigorous chiming in Europe so far.  So, from 0600, Jen waited for enough light to spring from bed and mount bikes.  The sky threatened a storm and a wind seemed poised for a blast but if we lay around we’d possibly miss out!

Thank goodness we didn’t because as usual, we were rewarded with a magnificent ride uphill past little yawning communities slowly gathering their morning rhythm as wonderful wafts of warm bread & coffee spilled from opened windows.  Turning around after 50 minutes, we beat the rain home to snuggle next to our babes for breakfast and a discussion on the fall of the Roman Empire - gonna miss all our talk time over meals. 

Maths tests completed, we pondered an excursion but the skies opened pouring heavily for about an hour and completely flooding the campsite.  We sat dry & cosy in Ed watching with fascination & interest the staff and other campers digging ditches, sweeping small waterfalls over half walls away from their tents & redirecting streams/rivers into huge storm water drains.  Soon the rain stopped, the camp was dry, staff had leveled the gravel, scooped up the piles of leaf litter and smoothed over water eroded gullies.  Clearly, this is life in Europe.  Boots hung on stick ends, soaked clothing draped over tree branches & kids jumped vigorously in the quickly disappearing remains of puddles.

Unbeknown to us just up the road 4 Aussies were seriously injured in a landslide just after the storm but we found out from the Di Cicco’s in Australia about it.

With the luxury of time, we cooked up a monster tikka chicken curry and settled in for an Italian lesson and reading.

Whilst Jeff loaded Ed’s advert, Jen and the kids walked down the road to the beach.  In a mere second, they were striped off, Kel in her undies, and in the ocean.  We puzzled over when last we swam in the sea and simply can’t remember anything since Spain.  Kel kept yahoo-ing and spinning in circles and Wil swam in and out practicing his freestyle and catching the smallest waves.  Both of them in their stretching gangly & happy, healthy bodies.

Every day, several times a day, we pinch ourselves, being always present to the privilege of our children this year.  They are so transparent, their minds so easy in the simplicity of our lifestyle and in their relationships within our nuclear family only. Their bodies are so pretty and they are so unaware of their nakedness focusing just on the pleasures of their movement & sensations of their skin.  They both played initially fascinated by each others tricks in the calm water and then by the smoothed and shaped marble & stones that make up the sand.  Wil’s humour shone as he fashioned tractor seats in the sand and built inverted castles in crater walls whilst Kel’s imagination gobbled her up in the building of a great complex castle with surrounding moat, to the tune of her non-stop chatter.  We came home with a hatful of green, terracotta and black pebble-beauties to “fancy up Ed.”   And in the forced company of mainly one another, Kel so adoring and desperate for his attention, eagerly engages as an attentive & willing student & audience to hear of his teaching about features of defensive castle walls, sports motorbikes, popular musicians…. Wil, unthreatened by the lack of peer observation, squeaks away as “Snuggy” playing endless BK games and watching soppy girlie kiddie movies revealing his actual great pleasure in them.  Furthermore, the privilege of time as adults to chew the fat so frequently doesn’t go unnoticed.  After lunch and over another coffee, we talked deeply about Jeff’s heavy book, “The Name of the Rose,” by Umberto Eco and Jen’s lighter read, “The Pursuit of Italy,” by historian David Gilmour.  We are fully mindful & deeply appreciative that we are having the time of our lives.  

Back in Ed, we warmed up over soup and crawled into our lovely beds ready for a day of hiking tomorrow - weather permitting!

25/9 CINQUE TERRE - MONTEROSSA to RIOMAGGIORE (and accidentally to La Spezia)

Jen marched with the early morning church bells from about 0300, waiting ‘til 0500 before creeping into the night to call APHRA in Oz to sort medical registration.  45 minutes,& no remaining credit or charge later, having been hung up on 3 times, it was sorted and back to bed for a short bit before we left our gorgeous curled up squids and snuck out into the early morning via a cappuccino fuel stop to climb the other pass.  Jeff led and chased the steepest little village roads maximizing the gradient until we turned an hour later.  Zipping downhill, we stopped off at the bakery selecting an unleavened bread, heavy & warm to take on our adventure.

Back home, once fed with packed bags we took off for explore the gorgeous Cinque Terre national park with it’s 5 village treasures.  The plan was to walk only the first leg to Monterosso and train the rest (which is closed for piedi).

Carleen and the kids from Perth 

The challenging walk wiggled up, up and down along a high coastal path passing small farms, tiny vineyards, olive groves & homes and offered incredible views. At odd times it felt like we could be walking through the Australian coastal scrub prompting the kids into the Aboriginal healing ‘yabidday’ dance invented lasy year in Yurrigur NP back home.

The kids sped along often running, singing and playing backwards word games.  On the descent into  Monterosso about 3 hours later, we met up with 3 Aussie kids (aged 11-14) and their gutsy single mumma Darleen from Perth, on a whirl wind 1 month European tour.  The younguns raced ahead talking feverishly and managed to get lost.  But, we 3 adults split up and in no time and our not so quiet 5 were localized before we all sat to a gelati.

The Perthians elected to do the return walk whilst our kids stripped off for a swim before enjoying our delicious packed lunch of bread, cheese, salami, cheese & fruit lightening Jen’s backpack somewhat - the simple things.

Planning on train hopping through the other small villages, we mistakenly followed the herd & ended up on a direct line to La Spezia, chatted with a cool Japanese traveller and simply caught another train back meeting a pair of Aussie travellers from T’ba whose kids go to UQ!  

The ancient little, traditionally vine growing towns peep & ooze out of great cracks in the coastal ocean walls & spill right into small harbours where the fishing boats are simply pulled up into the main streets alongside the fancy cafes.  

Colourful umbrellas offer a second rate shade compared to the ubiquitous freshly washed undies & linen hanging from small green shuttered windows.  Whilst great sheets of paint peel from the old walls, their gay colours of red, pink, yellow, orange & grey against the green vineyards & olives groves and the blue of the Mediterranean give them such fresh appeal.  

And then there’s the shapes - all houses seem similar & rectangular but then there’s the obligatory shapely church, gorgeous stone bridges & small harbours and the spectacular carved rock walls the sit on top off or squeeze between.  Rows of photographers with BIG cameras, tripods and all sorts of gear are perched on rocky lookouts like seabirds waiting for the pre-sunset glow.

We sauntered through Riomaggiore & Manarola before stopping for a coffee & appertivi in Vernazza, the quaintest of the 5 villages.  

UNESCO listing has allowed an aging population to continue living here by subsidizing their local pestos, helping them shop and assisting their health care.  Not sure how it’ll work out in the future because their locations, whilst pretty, would make them difficult and expensive to live in.  From what we can see tourism will hopefully maintain them.

Back at Levanto train station on dark, exhausted, but happy with a very full and satisfying day, we flopped through our showers and into bed.  

Tomorrow we plan to leave the Luguria-Piedemont region, home of Nutella (where hazelnuts were first added to chocolate to make the beans go further..), to the much anticipated Tuscany, home of the Renaissance of many masters of art history.

26/9

We decided to simply saunter along the beachfront on an ‘off ‘ exercise day and enjoy a more relaxed pace at ‘home’ rather than make for our next destination.

The morning was mostly full of school focusing on the idea of themes in essays and famous Italians alongside running erands printing Ed’s sale sign & getting more phone credit in town, filling out registration e-forms, doing a load of washing and cooking up a big prawn curry for a late lunch whilst watching the blacks clouds swirl around occasionally dumping their load.

Late afternoon, we jumped on our bikes and took a wonderful ride along the old coastal train track to Framura. The cycle path is brilliant with regular balconies on which to pause and gaze over the churnings of the ocean which, against the greeny-black marble sand beaches, looks amazingly azure. The small town of Framura was equally enchanting but FAR less populated than the Cinque Terre with small steep vineyards snuggling close to the coloured hillside houses and the sweeping stone boulevards alongside the harbour.

When back the family frolicked in the unusually wavy Med whilst Jen snapped some 80 photos of the action!  Kel & Jeff engineered an intersecting city of 7 tunnels whilst exploring prime numbers! Jeff fixed another puncture and semi-packed up for our departure tomorrow whilst the family warmed up in showers.

A simple dinner, an episode of Black Adder and a few chapters finished of the 26^th.