Talk about variety in 2 days, this post shares our
adventures from a typical Tuscan village, to the colourful Cinque Terre on the Italian Riviera and then onto
a lopsided tower that became famous.
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We arrive late in Lucca following several train rides due to
a cascade affect following one cancelled train in Venice. If there is one thing
we have learnt its that trains in Italy are not reliable and delays are just
part of the average day.
Lucca is situated in Tuscany and is a charming and
quintessential northern Italian village. It has mazes of cobblestone streets, everyone
seems to have green shutters on their cream coloured homes, potplants and unruly
vines dangle from people’s balconies and this along with the hanging laundry
gives this town a unique vibe. Lucca is known for its 12 metre high Renaissance
walls, and the ambition was to walk them but the weather was abysmal so walking
inside the walls admiring historic buildings, churches and drinking coffee was
the order of the day. Lucca is so gorgeous and makes it easy to stroll at a leisurely
pace, enjoying and savouring each moment of beauty.
As we wander the town it seems natural for locals to have
conversations from their open shuttered windows to people on the paths below. Lucca
has some pretty amazing dining options available and we had one of the best
foodie moments on our journey thus far at Canuleia. The highlight of the night
was the salt and pepper squid on the most sensational thick tomato soup –
beyond amazing! Even house wine in Italy is divine, any decent restaurant
treats house wine as a reflection of the establishment so you’re often in for a
tasty an inexpensive meal accompaniment.
Many people stay for a week or 2 in Lucca and use it as a
launching pad into the greater Tuscan region. Something we certainly would love
to do one day.
We only have time for one launch and this is in the direction of
Cinque (Chinka) Terre. I first found out about Cinque Terre when I saw a
picture of vibrantly coloured houses sitting on a sheer cliff on the ocean on
Pinterest. This picture was so incredible that I had to know where it was and
how I was going to get myself there! Cinque Terre was only a short train ride
from Lucca, and is an easy day trip, although in Summer you could relax a few
days here. Strung along 18km of serrated cliffs between Levanto and La Spezia
on the Italian Riviera, the Cinque Terre is one of Italy’s
treasures. These five higgledy-piggledy villages – Monterosso, Vernazza,
Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore – are cut off by mountains choked with
olive groves and dry-stone-walled vineyards, where farmers have eked out a
living over the centuries. Cinque Terre translated is ‘five lands’, and
these five villages are usually connected by a walking path through the
National Park, but thanks to landslides this is closed, but they are all still accessible
by train.
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| Vernazza |
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| Manarola |
We only had time to see 3 villages, Vernazza, Riomaggiore
and Manarola, and the pictures did not deceive me, they were just as special as
I had hoped – albeit a little quiet in the low season. Vernazza was probably
the most spectacular and sunset or early morning this would be a photographers
dream. We did have to do a fairly decent amount of hiking to get a good photo opportunity
though!
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| Vernazza |
There are little fishing boats everywhere, this is a big
part of life here, we see one pulling in for the afternoon and he brings up a bucket
of fish and a live octopus in the other hand. He briefly places the octopus in
the fish bucket and we watch it flail and twist around in its last throws of
life. The fisherman comes back and picks up the octopus which low and behold
has sucked itself onto 2 fish. He struggles to detach it and a passer-by sees
this situation and immediately stops what he is doing to intervene in the
crisis as they pull the fish and octopus apart. Within 2 minutes several locals
make their way down and purchase his goods fresh from the sea only 5 minutes
ago, and then it’s gone. This is just the way- talk about fresh!
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| Riomaggiore |
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| Manarola |
Cinque Terre feels like its own little world, the locals are
so relaxed and happy almost like they know the secret to life. Life is simple
here and not glamorous, the houses are worn, but the people are happy and there
is a sense of community as if all locals are life-long friends with a genuine
warmth in their interactions. Seafood is king, and by all accounts its good,
crop growing is big and limoncino is plentiful and everyone seems to make their
own with the local lemons growing up the green mountains.
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We can’t seem to escape the taste of limoncino or limoncello
in everything (not that we want to). It can be subtly tasted in just about
anything sweet, our favourite are custard filled mini Italian doughnuts.
We really wanted to quickly squeeze in seeing the leaning
tower of Pisa into our journey, so with the light fading we took an hour long
train ride. We and the rest of the tourists in Italy were there to take our
token photos of the tower. We never realised the tower was part of 3
spectacular buildings built on the Campo dei Miracoli (Field of Miracles), and
the other buildings were very stunning in their own right. In fact Pisans claim
that it is among the most beautiful squares in the world. Unfortunately for
Pisa a lot of people do what we do, come for 30-40 minutes stare, take some
happy snaps and leave as Pisa is not really reputed with having much else going
on. I guess the tower is one of those ‘been there, seen that, took the photo’
tourist places.
Simon and Amy xoxo
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