Monday, September 26, 2011

Cinque Terre - Love this place!

I was a little worn out after the South of France wedding events...and after missing two flights just to get to Nice, and then leaving Nice a day late and uncertain if we would make the train to Cinque Terre, I almost ruled it out and went straight to Tuscany. Remember, we didn't plan a thing, so it wasn't like we had hotels to cancel... It's a good thing we made that train and didn't skip what has become another one of my most favorite places in the world. There were other trains too...I had just lost some "travel patience" at that point, and my feet hurt after all that dancing in the cryptic abbey...so it wasn't like that was our only chance to get to Cinque Terre...

Here is a map of the towns: 

Map of Cinque Terre
The train from Nice to Cinque Terre only took a few hours. Don't ever eat on a train. I had forgotten that from my last Europe trip... It's like a sin to eat that terrible food when the best Caprese in the world is just beyond the train tracks. We arrived in Cinque Terre, one of the most visited places in the world, with nowhere to stay. That's one thing I wish we had planned for. We had hoped (and read online) that the first station in Cinque Terre (Monterrosso al Mare) would have lockers where you could store your luggage, so we thought we'd do that and then trek around looking for a great place to call home for a couple days. Not the case. Monterosso al Mare has a "Tourism" office right by the train station, and they always keep track of what hotels have room. Luckily we found something. I was a little scared of it at first (this shady looking Italian guy walks us out the building where the front desk was, around the corner, and down the street to another building that was too dark for me, and we proceed up 3 flights of stairs and past another shady looking Italian guy who is sweating and has a tank top on...so that wasn't a good start), but once we got down another hallway and into our room, and we opened the hurricane shutters, I saw that it was clean, could sleep up to 4 people, and had a great balcony with views of the mountains and the ocean. And, since it was the only place available & I didn't feel like schlepping luggage up and down the hills of Cinque Terre (if you go there you'll know what I mean), we took it. Later we did torture ourselves in the other towns by asking if they had available rooms (which they did & I would have been willing to pay for a really nice place), but I didn't want to waste time on switching places.

We spent that first afternoon walking (or climbing, rather) around Monterrosso. We walked by a restaurant called L'Ancora della Tortuga and saw that they didn't have many tables & it was perched high up, overlooking the Med. We asked the girl working if we could get a table for that night. She went through the reservations, and we snagged one of two available tables that evening & said we'd be back at 9pm. Lucky us! See, you don't always have to have plans... This was the best food I think we ate in Italy (and that's saying a lot because the food is amazing everywhere). I wish I had photos of our dinners to show you here. We ate a plate of raw seafood, with lobster, salmon, and other fish with only olive oil and lemon. We also ordered a pasta that I wish I could re-create but I know I'll never be able to, and of course a bottle of red wine. Here are a couple photos of the restaurant I found online, just to show you the setting & why we were lucky to get a table!

View of the patio from above...
View from above (& it's steep below too).
The servers come up to the patio from the restaurant below.
The hiking, the air temperature, getting in the ocean, the food, the wine, the views....I don't know how you could beat this place unless there were waves... I want to spend a few months here at some point in our lives.

The next day we did the full Cinque Terre excursion....We went to all the towns & we ate in every town! We took the train to Riomaggiore, which is the farthest town, and spent the day working our way back to Monterrosso. I won't go into detail on every single town, but I will say that Vernazza was my favorite town. Riomaggiore and Corniglia probably came in 2nd, but they were all fantastic. Normally I watch what I eat...blah blah....but in Cinque Terre (and Italy in general), my only goal was to eat as much as I could. The food is THAT good. We kept saying that God must have kissed this area, because the tomatoes are so juicy and tasty, the olive oil is exceptional, the wine won't give you a hangover (so drink as much as you'd like!), the seafood is so good, and it's like everything has 10x the flavor that it does at home (and we eat well in Santa Barbara...). I read a woman's blog that said, "You haven't lived until you've had pesto in the Cinque Terre" and now I agree with her. If you hike the trails, you will see all the grape vines and the olive trees. In town, you will see all the little gardens & how well they use their space. They have built gardens that grow horizontally, vertically, and every which way.

This is where we ate in Riomaggiore.
Looking back & down on the restaurant where we ate next to the bluffs...Riomaggiore.
There is great art in these towns, both in the shops and as you walk through town...
Walking by a mural...in Riomaggiore
Riomaggiore
Riomaggiore
The hike between Riomaggiore & Manarola. Also called Via Dell'Amore (or roughly "Lovers Walk").
Manarola
Manarola
Manarola
Manarola
A church in Manarola
A church in Manarola
It's hard to describe how blue & clear the Med is....
Views everwhere...
The streets of Manarola
In Manarola, we found this amazing restaurant up a somewhat hidden lane called Trattoria dal Billy. If you visit this town, you have to eat there! We found it on our own, but it turns out that TripAdvisor and Rick Steves have recommended it. We ordered a seafood appetizer, and they brought 12 different types of seafood in their own little dishes to our table. I did get pics this time...


Steep stairs...it's 3 flights down to the patio.

Next we were off to Corniglia...It's very steep when you arrive in this town. You have to climb about 400 steps to get up to the town. Because it's so steep, it's hard to photograph, so we took pics of it as we hiked out to Vernazza.

Church in Corniglia
Church in Corneglia
Looking back on Corniglia
Getting further out from Corniglia...on our hike to Vernazza.
The trail has a lot of steps & it's pretty steep. A lot of ups and downs....
Don't forget to jump in!
A classic looking elderly Italian couple
Then Vernazza (our favorite)...We arrived around sunset & we raced across town because I wanted to get some photos before sunset. We could see Vernazza from Monterrosso, so we knew the sun hits the little town at the perfect angle around sunset, and we wanted to end our ventures here & have dinner at sunset. We timed it perfectly!

Vernazza

Vernazza
Vernazza
Vernazza
Vernazza
Vernazza
Vernazza
Vernazza
At dinner in Vernazza
At dinner. Great restaurant by the water: Gambero Rosso.

And last, we took the train back to Monterrosso al Mare to crash & get up early to head to Tuscany...

We ended back in Monterrosso al Mare
Monterrosso al Mare

South of France

We arrived in Nice, ready for the wedding events... J's sister and her fiance had booked "The Stones Villa" which is named after the Rolling Stones because this was their house. They bought it in their younger years as a place to get away & to record music. It has been sold to another family at this point, but it's not hard to picture them spending time at this villa. It's tucked away far up in the hills, overlooking Nice, just outside a town called Vence (pronounced Vance). Twenty of us stayed there and had plenty of space. It has gorgeous views of the Mediterranean & the towns below, with decks and balconies everywhere you look, and a great swimming pool. We had a "Rockers on the Riv" 70's costume party, along with a Welcome BBQ for all the wedding-comers (although it was more like a gourmet catered dinner than a BBQ) at this house, and it served as a great pad to head out for day trips to check out the area.

Part of the 70's Crew
Welcome BBQ at the Stones Villa

I had been to Nice & Saint-Tropez with my girlfriend Christy a few years back, but that was a different experience. She's a clothing designer, so our only goal was to gather "market research" (aka "shopping!"), hang at the beach, and relax. We stayed in Saint-Tropez, which is still one of my favorite places, but I never saw the beautiful hill towns up above the beach towns. You can get to the French Alps in 1.5-2 hours from the Mediterranean.

We went to Antibes to spend time at the beach, and we would have spent more time checking out the beach towns if the traffic wasn't so bad. There was a yacht convention going on, so that brought in a lot of people... We stopped in amazing little town called Saint-Paul de Vence, and I think this was one of my favorite towns. It's perched up on a hill with an old stone wall around it. You could take a photograph of any street, any corner, any view, or shop & it would be worth framing. It's worth the visit. *On any of these photos, click once or twice to make them larger...

Saint-Paul de Vence
We also cruised up to Saint-Jeannet (which is where the wedding was held) to hike the Baou de Saint-Jeannet. The hike takes about 60-90 minutes to get to the top (I can't remember exactly how long it took us), and it's a pretty steep hike. It felt great to me to get some exercise, after all the eating! The trail has views as you hike up, and we passed a group of billy goats and sheep with all their bells on. Two of the billy goats got into it & had a full fight in front of us so that added some entertainment along the way. I have a video of it, and I'll load it eventually & add it here. The view from the top is incredible. Here are a couple photos... All of these photos are iPhone photos so forgive the quality...

billy goats
view from the top
View of Saint-Jeannet from the Baou
The rehearsal dinner was in the town of Vence, at Restaurant de Siegneurs. The groom's family has been eating at this restaurant & celebrating big occasions there for a long time (I think they said at least 35 years, if not longer...). Great food, lots of fun, good company, creative speeches by the family, and an overall great atmosphere! Here we are....all dressed up.
Em + J - Town of Vence
Restaurant Des Seigneurs, Vence, France
Inside the restaurant...
The wedding itself was amazing. Not only were the bride and groom looking stunning, but the church in Saint-Jeannet dates back to the 16th century, and the town of Saint-Jeannet is blanketed with flowers and overlooks the Med. You can't beat it! I can't wait to see the professional wedding photos because I know they will be timeless....not to mention make my iPhone photos look terrible. The cobblestone streets are so small that you can't drive a car down most of the roads. I wish America had more of that architecture. We just don't spend much time on our buildings, we don't have that craftsmanship, and we don't build them to last like they did back then. After the wedding ceremony, we got in vans and went down to L'Abbeye for the reception. They had at least 10 different appetizers, yummy cocktails, and we all had a chance to check out the Abbey. Then it was a delicious dinner that I'm still thinking about. It's the best food we had while we were in France, and it was a 3-star Michelin restaurant. I hear that the Michelin stars are pretty hard to get...and 3 stars is the highest a restaurant can get on the scale. It was a lovely setting, and then they topped it off with a dance party in the chapel at the abbey that is dated to the 10th century. It was a dark-stone chapel that felt cryptic because of the darkness and the uneven floors. They put a DJ in there, gave us all sandals so we wouldn't break any bones (I still did something to my knee...and I know I'm not the only one!), and also loaded us with flashing toys (disco balls, squishy stars, sunglasses that lit up and flashed lights everywhere). That was all it took to have every one of us soaked with sweat and laughing until the wee hours... I was too busy dancing to get any pics of that part of the wedding. The night ended with our taxi's transmission going out, attempting to get back up to the Stones Villa which is not an easy trek for a car. We all had to walk the rest of the way home but no one cared... It was a great wedding!!
Church of Saint-Jeannet
Saint-Jeannet
Views from Saint-Jeannet
Flowers throughout the town of Saint-Jeannet
Bride (Ashley) & Maid of Honor (Sara)

We had planned to head to Cinque Terre the next day, but we weren't moving very fast so we stayed at the villa for another night and left a day later. My next post will be the start of Italy...