18:21
Location: Ananasso Bar, Vernazzo harbour square

A great day. My feet hurt, so it must have been a good hike! There were some pretty serious ups and downs, so I expect to hear from my legs tomorrow...

The Via dell' Amore started with a long cool well-lit tunnel which came out near the Manarola station. Here, I was intercepted by a woman who checked the ticket I had bought in Vernazza. I was gratified to find it had indeed been genuine, and was let past with no bother. The rest of the path, after climbing up some stairs, was a wide, level, paved lane, which passed along some truly steep cliffs. In places the path was cut deep into the cliff face, with windows cut out through the cliff walls to let in light. There was a fair amount of graffiti, some beautiful but most rather ugly.

The Via turned a corner and came to Riomaggiore's train station. It was getting on in the day and I still had a long walk from Monterosso to Vernazza to complete, so I went straight in, waited 10 minutes, and caught the train back to Monterosso, without actually seeing Riomaggiore at all. Hopefully I'll get a chance tomorrow.

Monterosso al Mare had a wide beach, with sand and even a couple of brave paddlers, and a road running parallel. On benches set on the sea side of the road, the old women of the village were seated in groups of two to four, chatting and soaking up the sunshine. Younger locals were also out in force, walking up and down the road, singly with bicycles, or as couples, hand in hand.

I made my way towards Vernazza, and the road led through a tunnel while the sidewalk headed up some stairs to a paved path around the next turn in the cliffs to the eastern cove of the village, where it met up with the road again. Here, fishing boats and paddle boats were lined up side by side. One fisherman was working on the engine of his boat, about 20 foot long with a little cabin, raised up on wooden supports so the propellers span futily in the air, with the little exhaust plume spraying backwards onto the sand.

I continued on and came to a bowls game in a small fenced-off club on the left. There were several spectators who had hopped up on the low wall next to the fence, and I hopped up beside them to watch. The players were really good, tossing and rolling their balls with amazing accuracy over a good 20 foot distance, with exquisitely applied spin to curve them in to the target at the end of their path. A couple of American girls stopped to watch and I explained what little I knew of the rules. They headed on towards Vernazza, and after a few more minutes and a couple of photos, I followed.

The path to Vernazza rose up steeply at the beginning, climbing high and more or less straight up the hillside. After some distance, it started curving around the hill, but kept climbing. The path was very well maintained, but for the most part it was quite narrow, though there were railings where the cliff edges were the most sheer. There were also some magnificent views, and I was very glad I had stopped to buy more film in Manarola. I soon passed the Americans again, and at one point stopped to take a picture of them on the path behind me.

On the final bend before the descent to Vernazza I came upon a French couple, and offered to take a photo of the two of them together. There was a dramatic backdrop, and they offered to take mine there as a reciprocal gesture, which I was happy to accept.

Finally I started the descent to Vernazza. There were a couple of picture postcard views--literally, as the postcards on sale in the village were clearly taken from the path. I stopped for a few shots. A German couple were bemoaning their lack of film, so I offered to email a photo to them, and took down the man's email address. We continued walking on together into the town. Then I said goodbye and went down to the harbour square for a much-needed beer.

Sadly, as the sun has started going down the clouds have rolled in, and the sky is now cool and gray. I can only hope that it will clear up again tomorrow, for another great day!
posted by Tom at 6:56 PM | link |