ITALIA

Italy is a place of stunning natural (Cinque Terre) and manmade (Pisa, Verona, Venice) beauty. It can also be a frustrating place for a tour director where even though you have made reservations and pre paid for something well in advance, you must stand in a huge crowd of people holding up your reservation confirmation and yelling and pushing in order to get your group into the attraction you are going to see. If you are naturally polite and reserved, like me (well, most of the time), it is a bit stressful. Comparing, for example, the Louvre in Paris, where the group is welcomed into the building calmly and efficiently before the scheduled tour, given a free bag and coat check, shown where the clean and adequately sized washroom facilities are, and invited to relax in a waiting area before the tour begins to the Accademia, an art museum in Florence, where you are admonished to arrive 15 minutes before your scheduled time, and when you do it takes 15 minutes just to get someone to look at your reservation sheet (after much yelling and pushing), and then they let other groups in before you in error, and then tell you that you must wait another 45 minutes because there are too many people in the museum, all the while your group is standing in the crowded, chaotic rainy street, no washrooms anywhere in sight, and you understand what I mean. But it is all part of the adventure. Apologies for the run on sentence.

We arrived in Pisa on time for our prepaid appointment to go up the tower, but I had to stand in the ticket office for so long to trade my reservation sheet for tickets that our first group ( I had to divide us into three groups when making the appointments because they will only release 15 tickets to one group for one 20 minute block of time) missed our appointment. But after much complaining, they agreed to split our first group into 3 groups of five and send us up with other groups. The tower is, after all, leaning, and they don’t want too many people up there at one time. The weird crooked feeling you get walking up the 294 worn marble steps stays with you standing on the crooked top looking down and realizing that you are 200 feet up, and leaning over 15 feet from the base. There is a guardrail, thankfully. Looking down on the Campo dei Miracoli (the field of miracles) at the cathedral and baptistery and the crowds of tourists and vendors you are amazed by the vastness of humanity and the accomplishments and errors we have made throughout history. I would categorize the leaning tower as both an accomplishment and an error.


After descending the leaning tower, we were off to Levanto, a village on the Mediterranean coast with easy train access to the Cinque Terre. I was really looking forward to this evening as we were eating at Ristaurante Moresco – an Italian (obviously!) restaurant very popular with locals. Roberto, the owner and waiter, has an excellent way of serving large groups – he comes to each table and explains the three choices (Linguine witha clama sawz, ravioli witha bolognayz sawz, or gnocchi witha payzto sawz {my favourite}), and then takes orders by a show of hands for each choice. Last year, I forgot to tell the group that the first huge, heaping plate is only, well, the first plate. After we leisurely finish the pasta course, Roberto gives us the three choices for the main course (squida and shrimp plate, chicken, or tomato mozzarella (which is exactly that – juicy tomato slices with delicious fresh mozzarella slices – nothing like regular mozzarella used on pizza – just add some extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar and you have a real Italian treat). Then he puts some vegetables on the table for everyone to share – some fresh salad greens, some roasted potatoes, and of course there is the bread, and the water frizzante (with gas) or naturale (without gas). Oh yeah, and then there is dessert (chocolata cake, fresha strawberries, panna cotta) OK, how many people are salivating now? I am. This is why the anti-fast food movement, aptly named the "slow food" movement, began in Italy. Rens says that when he goes to Moresco for lunch on his day off while we are hiking, it is filled with workers from the village – road crews, construction workers, etc. They don’t wolf down a burger and a coke in 15 minutes in Italy for lunch, at least not in little Levanto.
After the huge meal we go back to the convent we are staying at – Ospitalia Del Mar, the hostel, is housed in an old convent in Levanto.
Hiking the Cinque Terre (literally the "five lands" – it refers to five little fishing villages that date back to the Roman empire) is very different from hiking in BC. This part of the Mediterranean coastline has very unique plant life – so unique that Italian biology classes often come here for field trips to study it. There are huge succulent cacti, and a whole bunch of other plants my wife would probably be able to identify as something more than a bush or a flower, but that’s the best I can do. But walking through the olive groves and lemon orchards definitely lets you know this isn’t the Stanley Park seawall.
Hey Europe 2006ers – guess what – I didn’t get anyone lost this year! Probably because it was a gorgeous day – clouds with sunny breaks, just the right temperature for hiking, and absolutely NO FOG OR RAIN! That one section between Manorola and Corniglia is still closed, but 17 of us walked the whole thing from Riomaggiore to Monterosso (minus that one section) and still got back to Levanto in time for a cool dip in the Mediterranean. Vernazza, the place where the singing pizzeria owner welcomed us in last year despite the fact we were all soaking wet and muddy, was full of open shops and restaurants this year – I guess when it rains nobody except crazy Canadian west-coasters actually hike, so most people don’t bother opening their businesses. We got pizza from a little take out place, and when I paid the bill, the guy who served us told me "no charja for you (typical when a tour guide brings a group to a place) or the blonda girls".
We went for our first group gelato in Vernazza, and just like last year, the kids who had won either the Mont. St. Michel or Rothenberg scavenger hunt had kept their "1 Extra Scoop" tickets I gave them, and cashed them in for a triple rather than a double scoop of the best ice cream on the planet. Last year we went to the same place, and enjoyed our gelato even though we were all cold and soaking wet.
Back in Levanto, a well deserved second dinner at Moresco.
To the 17 who did the whole hike – I know I know I promised you something, especially Tony, who is a superhuman and in much better shape than me. I didn’t deliver in Italy – I’ll think of something back in Canada. Maybe an extra scoop of gelato ticket? You could see if any of the local gelato places will take it.

Note: After Simon got sick, which was the day after I wrote this entry, I stopped writing - the journal ends here for now. I wasn't even going to post this one, but, sitting here at my desk in Langley, re-reading it, I thought I should.

Craig