April 6 – At Sea. A very normal day at sea for me, writing, reading, chat time, etc. We were invited to have dinner with the hotel manager, Fermin van der Walle, and his wife. Fermin is Belgian and a very funny guy. Dinner with him was a good time. They always put a little extra effort into the menu when one of the senior officers is the host. It's not a big advantage for me but the cellar master always provides some excellent wine matched to the food. As usual it's a table for 10 so there are 3 other couples. Sometimes you get a clinker at the table but tonight everyone was very congenial and we had a good time.
Because Fermin eats late we decided not to stay up for the late show. It's an early day tomorrow and it's a port we haven't seen before.
April 7 – La Spezia, Italy. Our first time in La Spezia and it's a very nice little port. We are anchored inside the port so there's no issue with swell or waves for the tender service. It was a very pleasant 10-minute ride on the ship's tender to the pier right downtown.
La Spezia is a very sheltered harbor in a small inlet off the Gulf of Genoa (aka Gulf of Poets because Dante, Byron, George Sand and DH Lawrence all mention this area in their works. The city is right on the border of Tuscany/Laguria border and has a culture that combines the traditions of both. The only old building still standing is the Castel San Giorgio because the Allies bombed the heck out of the port, as it was a base for German submarines.
The city itself is not a tourist Mecca but does have one thing very worth seeing, the Museo Amedeo Lia. Mr. Lia's private collection was donated to the city on his death. He had amassed over 2,000 works by Titian, Tintoretto and Bellini, among others. The time span is from the Middle Ages to the 18th century and includes antique and modern miniature sculptures, porcelain, crystal and religious art. It's in a former Franciscan church and the building is almost as interesting as the art collection.
We are headed out of town to the Cinque Terre (literally Five Lands). This name was given to the five cities (Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola & Riomaggiore) located along the coast of a peninsula over the mountains from La Spezia. In former times the trip over the mountains had to be done on foot and this isolated these five cities from the rest of the area. We're going to visit all of them except Corniglia.
We drove out of La Spezia to the south along the peninsula that almost closes the entrance to the harbor. We looped around the end and then started back to the north along the coast. We stopped at an overlook to get a view of Riomaggiore from above. The town climbs both sides of a fairly steep valley from the water's edge to about three-fourths of a mile inland. It has a small rock jetty to protect the harbor where the fishing boats tie up. Right across the street from the viewpoint parking lot is a mural of Lance Armstrong who apparently won the 2009 race through the hills here.
We drove along the ocean about a thousand feet up the hillside until we came to the next village, Manarola. Here we got off the bus and walked down the hill into the town. It was a combination of stairs and steep streets each having their own challenge. The stairs are tall so unless you control your steps carefully your knees take a beating. The steep streets jam your toes into the front of your shoes unless your shoes fit well and are laced up pretty tightly. It's easy enough for Diana and me but some of the older people are really having a hard time. I guess they asked for it. The ship's shorex staff is very clear about how much and what type of walking you have to do on each tour so if you book it you have no one to blame but yourself.
The walk was interesting. We started out in the agricultural zone where they have built very narrow terraces to hold soil for agriculture. In this area it's grapes to produce white wine because the climate is unsuitable for reds. The terraces are so narrow that they have installed a monorail to move along the hillside when they tend the vines or pick grapes. Most of them have a small gas engined car with a plastic seat that pulls cars that look like a flatbed truck trailer but are only 5 feet long and about 18 inches wide. Most have two attached. The rail has teeth on the bottom that engage a drive cog on the engine to pull the train forward. The thing is about the scale of those small trains that kids ride at parks. The vines are a wide as the terraces so this device gives the workers someplace to sit or stand while they work.
Slowly we worked our way down far enough to encounter the farmer's homes and gardens. One energetic older man was our raking his small vegetable plot. He's on the east side of the valley so he won't get sun until nearly noon because the valley walls are so steep.
We continued downward to the center of the city and stopped at a small plaza (the valley is very narrow so the plaza had to be small) and had some free time to take a look at the local goods. As usual I set off to find the local pastry shop and see what the favorite is here. I found it and it was very good. It was a triangular turnover made with croissant type dough that puffed up during baking. It had a series of stripes across the top and a light dusting of confectioner's sugar. Inside it had a chocolate filling with finely chopped nuts, almonds I think, mixed in. Another in a long string of winners.
Breakfast Pastry Note: To be honest, this practice of buying the local favorite without asking about the ingredients is a fairly safe practice in Europe. Our concept of what qualifies as a breakfast pastry is very close to theirs, as you would expect. Where you can get into trouble with this practice is in Asia. The Oriental idea of both breakfast and the perception of sweetness can be radically different from the USA. In the Far East they don't really value sweet like we do. They are more interested in sour, salty and bitter especially in Japan. Their usual 'sweets' hardly taste sweet to me at all. They're good; they are just not very sweet. On a rare occasion, they will be a rather unpleasant surprise. Sometimes I suspect that they don't really give me the local favorite but rather the local oddity.
We are going to walk south to Riomaggiore along the seacoast on the Via dell 'Amore (The Way of Love). It's a path right along the coast high up on the cliff side that is carved out of the rock face in most places. It was improved a few years ago to make it safer and they now charge an entrance fee to help maintain the improvements. The walk was probably a little more than a mile on mostly level ground. The views back toward Manarola were beautiful but difficult to capture in a photo. The views toward Riomaggiore were also great but directly into the sun and out of the question for pics.
There were long stretches where the path was just carved into the rock of the cliff. At other places it was partly suspended like a bridge. In areas where rockslides are a constant problem it had a stone structure over it like a long ambulatory around a cloister with arches to allow views out to the sea. The longest of these was about 200 yards in length. At the southern end the path enters a tunnel as it arrives in the city. The side of the tunnel toward the ocean is covered in a long mosaic, in fact the longest in Europe. Some of it was representational, mostly marine life, but most of it was just imaginative use of colors and shapes of tile with some natural materials mixed in for texture.
The city's little harbor is protected by a stone breakwater. There's a long sloping space where the fishermen can pull their boats to get them out of the water. It's a very colorful spot and the southernmost wall of the valley ends in a tall rocky promontory that allows a great view of the city. The northern side of the valley was bathed in sun and the tightly stacked houses rose from the valley floor like a jumble of children's blocks. The 'streets' going up to these homes are actually very steep stone stairways, but they do give them street names. Only the main street down the floor of the valley is smooth to allow small vehicles access to the city center for deliveries.
After a short time here for some photos we headed further south along the cliff to get to the ferry pier. Calling it a pier is a lot like calling a TV tray a banquet table. It's a small slab of flat concrete located at the end of a very steep stairway. When the ferry pulls in they put a gangway directly off the bow to the concrete slab and everyone scrambles aboard. If the water gets even a little rough this system is too dangerous and the ferry does not operate.
We are riding the ferry north past Manarola and Corniglia to Vernazza. The views of the coastline going north were spectacular. Each of the cities we passed was nestled in it's own little valley and came down to the waterline except Corniglia. It was atop a sheer cliff looking just like a very colorful hanging glacier. As the valley continues toward the ocean from the city it becomes very steep and narrow preventing the city from expanding in that direction. A stairway with multiple switchbacks leads from the city down to the small harbor and storage area for fishing boats. It's a sunny and warm day so the boat ride was a pleasure.
We left the ferry in Vernazza. This city is built on a natural inlet and has an actual beach at the foot of the city. The valley is wide enough at the end to have fair sized square right next to the beach. There are cafes on two sides of the square and that's where Diana and I decided to have lunch. We were told that the local mussels were the thing to try so that's what I'm looking for. We started with caprese, a salad of sliced tomatoes, basil and buffalo mozzarella, usually sprinkled with olive oil, sometimes pesto and balsamic vinegar. This one was also garnished with small green olives and some finely chopped herbs.
Diana ordered linguini with crab and I got seafood risotto after being assured that it used the local mussels. When they arrived we were not disappointed. The rice was topped with mussels, clams and two large crawfish. The only thing you have to become accustomed to is that the Italians like their rice done as they do their pasta, al dente. Both were delicious.
After lunch we had some time for shopping and photos. These towns are very hard to photograph. You can't get far enough from anything for perspective. That's one of the reasons I started taking pictures of windows and balconies.
When time was up we walked up to the top of the town to the railroad station. We're riding the train back into La Spezia. It was a very short trip by train. The bus had taken about 90 minutes of driving time to get here, the train trip back took less than 20 and that was with three stops on the way. It was not a scenic train ride as most of it was in tunnels or rock sheds. After a short bus ride back to the port we were home again on the P-dam.
Tonight's show was a reprise of Link Linkin and Jeri Sager. Both were very good again. In fact I liked Jeri's performance better than the first one. She still sang show tunes but this time not the same silly type she sang in her first show. I prefer the more substantial tunes like Somewhere Over the Rainbow, Old Man River or Memory to the silly I am 16 Going on 17 variety that some artists seem to be in love with. Just a personal point of view, I'm sure those type songs have musical merit too. I had to hold a gun on myself to make me write that last sentence.
No comments:
Post a Comment