Day 21 - Cinque Terre walk - the more love you make, the more love you take

I am sure this day is going to be one of the days we remember most of this trip - a magical day. We catch the train to Riomaggiore, the first of the five towns that make up the Cinque Terre. This little town is renowned for 'amore' and as we start the coastal track for the next village there is colourful graffitti lining the cliff face walls. There are also thousands of locks of all sorts, shapes and colours hanging off wire fencing all along the walk - apparently put up by people in love 'to lock their love for posterity'.

The walk is a great introduction to the Cinque Terre - it is relatively short at only one km to the next small town of Manarola and hugs the cliffs with spectacular scenery. We enter a tunnel with windows looking out to sea and a wonderful sound of a piano accordian playing a very upbeat melody, very much dance music, greets us. Fantastic acoustics in the tunnel and to hear it made everyone smile. This was one busker who was on to a good thing and we stopped to put money in his hat.


We explore Manarola, which unfortunately is packed with tourist groups - I thought we had escaped all this - before getting on the train to take us to town number three: Corniglia.

Here we climb 382 steps (and they are hard steps) up to the town perched on top of a hill. As we climb the zig zag steps I can smell the most wonderful smell. There are yellow wildflowers everywhere - I think they are a common weed - and suddenly I think of honey. Later in the town I buy some of the local honey and it smells just like the flowers. Ligurian honey - very different and delicious.

The small town is enchanting. Despite an influx of tourists walking the Cinque Terre walk it still functions totally as a small rural village. The cheese shop, bakery and delicatessen are so rustic I realise that all the delis we have in Australia are imitations trying to capture the authenticity of what I am seeing - the real thing. Dinky little one person trucks arrive in the village square with boxs of grapes in the back.

At the small pizzeria/restuarant we have lunch and order lemonata. Unlike Rome and Florence where we were used to getting something resembling Sprite - here we get just pure lemon juice and ice - no sweetening at all. Very much a liver cleansing kick to start our walk on the trail to the next town of Vernazza.

The walk takes us uphill through olive groves and vineyards and then around the clifftop. More spectacular scenery. It is tough going though - the hips complain a lot. There are a lot of people on the walk and we all laugh as we pass each other, all grateful for the opportunity to stop for a moment.


By mid afternoon we reach Vernazza, a delightful town, perched on a rock - not much flat ground, but atmospheric with narrow streets and colourful houses close-knit together. There is a small bay with a circular marina and lots of boats and people. Alan and I do the cozzie changing thing with a sarong and slip off rocks into the Ligurian Sea.

We return to Levante about 5pm worn out but happy. We find a great little restaurant and have one of the best meals we have had in Italy. We try the traditional Gattafin for our antipasto course and love it. It consists of pecorini cheese with crushed basil and other herbs in pastry. (Ligurian cuisine is renowned for its pestos, anchovies, wines and honey.) Alan has scallopine in a white wine sauce, me grilled beef, both accompanied by ratatouille and delicious roasted and herbed potatoes. We end the meal with a basilico liquer. Perfecto.

I love love love Summer

It has been the best Christmas/New Year break from work I can remember.  Sunshine, swimming, sleep-ins, sewing - all the favourite 's' words.  (I was going to be risque and throw in another but this is a G-rated blog.) 

We have had lots of house guests coming and going - more Melbourne university students than I can count emerging from the shed in all states of undress and disrepair, pre and post the Falls Festival.  Also cousin Vicki over for Micaela and Aaron's lovely bush wedding yesterday at Koonya.  We had lots of laughs together.

I've had great times too with little Izzie and Lilli - outings to the Taste, Conningham beach and kayak fun. 

Husband has continued his walking addiction over the break and stirred me into a bit more activity too so despite Christmas lunch and the Sue/Steph Christmas take 2 eating and drinking excitement I am feeling quite healthy. New Year's Eve was memorable up at Johnny's watching the amazing lightning storm right above us, full moon and blackout.  

Only nine more days of work and then it's off to Sydney and New Zealand.  Life is good.  2010 promises lots.  Happy birthday today Kerry.

Above is a photo of our new outdoor light shining on John's pumice masterpiece and Tom's wooden fish.

Let's get physical!

Nothing like the approach of a trip to Sydney to make a girl want to make an effort to get the body into some sort of shape (or is it too late?). Yesterday morning Sue and I had our first dragon boat row on the Derwent - eleven women in a long narrow skiff with a man standing up at the back of the boat with a long oar steering us. Quite a workout. I was hopeless at first - way out of rhythm and mostly only managing to do one stroke to the women in front of me's two - but managed to get the hang of it and didn't make too much of a disgrace of myself. Felt quite exhausted afterwards and could have even had an arvo nap.

I am blaming being pooped for my 'sewing injury' that afternoon. While sewing a scarf I managed to sit heavily on my pin cushion which I'd left on the chair in front of my sewing machine. At least six long darning needles impaled themselves into my bottom. OUCH OUCH OUCH OUCH OUCH OUCH! Had to extract them one at time. No sympathy from husband who was preoccupied with his own misery - the 'man flu'.

Despite the sore bottom, shoulders and arms Sue and I continued the fitness theme this morning by pushing ourselves on our Sunday morning walk - uphill moaning and groaning o Boronia Reserve but felt quite pleased with ourselves back at Sue's with our cups of tea.

Came home and did a bit of screen printing - a row of birds which I plan to use as part of a bag front. Worked out okay but the wind whipped up just after I pegged the printed pieces of material up on a rope in front of the oak tree and some of the material bits flapped wet ink around. Ah well.




Above top is a photo of a corner of the garden which is looking rather nice now that the rhodos are out and below the 'love tree' with its new 'e'.

Playing shop

Esther came around today. Long time no see - it was great to catch up with her. She helped me work out some display ideas for my market stall in a couple of weeks from her experience working at Reminiscence. Noella had cut down some lovely branches for me to use to hang bags from (not that you can see this in the pic) and we played around with where to place this on a table of the same width as my stall will be. Also going to use Alan's wooden mannequin from Ikea to display some of the knitted rings. What fun it was - like being little girls again.

Other news - Izzie started walking on Thursday. I was able to see one of her first tentative walks across Lilli and Matt's lounge room on my mobile phone via a video sent to me. Isn't technology wonderful!