Wine

Pieropan Soave 2011

There's a whole heap of Soave out there that makes it hard for any decent producerer in the region to charge a reasonable amount for their product. It's a bit like all that $5 Australian Chardonnay, in that it's created a niche for itself that is broadly "tastes OK for a cheap wine". And so, we can buy any number of Soaves off the Dubai shelf for about 30AED - they've got a little in the way of aromatics, some zing, and are always good with food (probably because they are so watery and neutral).

Zenato Santa Cristina Vigneto Massoni Lugana 2011

It's Trebbiano, Jim, but not as we know it. There are some who would say it's not Trebbiano at all, but something else, closer to Vermentino, but not quite that either. Lugana is a tiny region that runs along the shore of Lake Garda in Veneto, and there are a couple of wines styles from the region, but all come from the same grape, Trebbiano (or it's little sister).

It's so much richer and more vibrant than the slightly nutty but fairly neutral Trebbianos you might find elsewhere. Instead it's perfumed and slightly floral, and also a little like a vanilla tea cake. I'm not quite sure where this vanilla/cake flavour comes from though, because the wine is completely unoaked. The palate reveals a little sneaky citrus - almost like a clementine but so soft, and then bending into white peach and orange blossom. It finishes with just a touch of green almond.

Fantastic food wine, but keep the dishes fresh and simple - chicken caesar salad, grilled white fish, or for a contrast, a gentle triple brie with some herb crackers - you know the kind of thing. Lovely, lovely wine.

Drink now or for 1-2 years
60AED + tax
17/20

Tommasi Bosco de Gal 2010

This is a very inexpensive blend that packs a punch. The grape varieties are Trebbiano, Garganega, Malvasia and Cortese. Cortese is the famed Gavi variety, and Garganega is the same of Soave. Here, they come together with a couple of flavoursome (but often low acid and a little light on complexity) varieties to form a Bianco di Custoza. Custozas are usually fairly good value and this is not an exception. It's fruity, with apricot, orange blossom and cantaloupe up front and some lean lemon peel stretching through the finish. Good balance for the price and a lovely every-day drinking wine.

Drink now
45AED + Tax
14/20

Caldora Trebbiano d'Abruzzo 2011

Trebbiano is one of the highest yield grape varieties you can get. So it's always pretty cheap. Would it help if I called it Bombino Bianco? That sounds better than common cheap white, doesn't it? And it should - this is a quite explosive little number. The equivalent in Italy of a cheap grassy Antipodaen Sauvignon Blanc, but better, more lemony, subtler, yet still aromatic. This particular one has about 15% Malvasia, which lends it a little strength and backbone. It's citrussy, has some herby spicy notes - more thyme and straw than the grass you often find in Sauvignon. It has a ripe and pear like front palate, and considering its price, a very reasonable length. Great every-day drinking wine.

Drink now
35AED + tax
14/20

Cossetti Barbera d'Asti La Vigna Vecchia

I played wine options with my husband on this wine. He first picked it as New World (as against old), and then as Spanish (rather than French or Italian). He finally got the grape variety (I offered him a choice of Barbera, Sangiovese and Merlot). He was way off on vintage. But he's a fairly good wine taster - why? It's because this wine tastes much younger, more vibrant and more fruit driven than many would expect. It's almost a little like a serious Beaujolais - all dark cherries and spice with nuances of raspberry and vanilla on the finish. Body is medium, tannins are light and acid is fairly soft. There's a little earthy hint to the middle palate, but nothing like the rusticity you might expect to find in an old vine Italian wine from a time-tested region. Quite clean actually, and dangerously quaffable - especially in this climate.

Drink now or for 3 years
80AED = tax
15/20

Villa Sandi Pinot Grigio 2011

Well this one's a surprise. During wine training I remember someone telling me a good Italian Pinot Grigio would taste like bananas. 15 years later, and I've finally tasted one. This is not your typical insipid crowd-pleaser, but a full and serious wine. It's jammed with flavour, and yet still finishes dry and neutral with that trademark bitter almond lash that keeps it firmly in the relam of 'food wines'. Fruit flavours are mainly up front - banana of course, a little marshmallow and fresh star anise. Apricots are a merest nuance twisting through the middle and back palate. Luverly.

Drink now and for 3 years
AED 65 AED + Tax
17/20

GPG Garganega Pinot Grigio 2011

I picked this one up for three reasons - one, it was cheap, two, it has Garganega in it, and I'm a big fan of Soave (Garganega is the main grape variety of this great value dry, fragrant and yet neutral white wine), and it's a joint operation between a UK merchant I know little about, but more importantly, a Piemontesi wine producer by the name of Araldica, who are improving their quality by leaps and bounds. It's a simple wine, but well made. The nose is full of stewed apples and pears, and the palate has some lovely acidity. It's a fab everyday wine, and definitely worth the money.

Drink now
35AED + tax
13.5/20

Cantina di Custoza Pinot Grigio 2011

A little more forward than many other Pinot Grigios on the market. Ripe nose, full of fruit (pears mainly), but also a little chemical/oily smell, which fortunately does not dominate. A little spice on the palate, again, rare for modern Italian Pinot Grigio, and welcome, as far as I am concerned. Lovely long tropical finish - dried pineapples - and a little almond kick just to make sure it doesn't cloy. Fuller body than most PGs, and good for drinking on its own, rather than all the others, which need something served with them to make them taste like something.

Drink now
50AED + tax
13.5/20

Orvieto - a castle on the clouds

I'd seen Orvieto in my dreams before. Floating, a castle village resting on stormclouds. Close up it was a town of gallant knights and minstrels, pomp and power, madness and frivolity, a big bite of full-flavoured life. In reality, the clouds are stone, but it rests on its pedestal no less grandly than I had hoped.

Photo by Byron Roe Photography (see note*)

Anyone who has never seen it before will have the same reaction upon watching it loom over the Roman Campagnia as if it was lord of Lazio, not the princeling of Umbria that it is. You will gape. It truly is the image of legends - a Latin Valhalla. And you will need to visit.
Either take the Funicular from the railway station, or the escalators from Campo della Fiera, or do as we did - drive the heavenly windy road to Via Roma, park and follow the stragglers past the funicular station and through the outer until the bitumen gives way to cobbles and you pass through the invisible walls into history.

This is no rambling village. Although the complete lack of cars may lead you to think this is a town for a simple stroll - it is not so. As each step takes you closer to the centre, and past stone buildings each more wrinkled by time than the last, you will realise that one day is not going to be enough. You will head for the Duomo - everybody does. You might stop for coffee in the shady Corso Cavour, nibble on tozzetti alle mandorle, then continue past the brick-a-brac and gourmet stores slowly. By the time you reach the piazza del duomo, you will be in need of lunch, and the discovery will hit you - you've misjudged the tourist merit of this town. My family alotted only a day to beautiful Orvieto, and I fear we missed the best parts. Ah well such is life. An excuse to return I suppose. But the day was by no mean wasted.

We ambled, allowing ourselves to stumble onto tourist attractions like the lazy folk we are. We missed the underground Orvieto, because that would have required organization, booking on a guided tour. Now I regret it. The Etruscan past and the love this region seems to have with mystery and intrigue has filled the tufa rock that Orvieto rests on with a warren of escape routes and subterranean art. 

We saw the Cathedral - a pied monolith of such grandeur, again, I found Orvieto had physically taken the breath from me. It's not just the outside - perfect geometry in travertine and basalt, and lacy sculpture and mocaic. Inside it is sheathed in works both delicate and grotesque by Fra Angelico and Luca Signorelli and a hush and cool that even the hottest rowdiest bunch of summer tourists cannot seem to penetrate. It's possibly the most jaw-dropping cathedral I've seen behind Gaudi's Sagrada Familia.

We dined at the kooky Hostaria Nonnamelia a clean and soulful restaurant with clever modern take on Umbria rustic, attitude-fueled staff and reasonable food. I partook of some homemade umbricelli - wiggly fat worms of buttery pasta with summer truffle. We did not get a chance to sample the more traditional fare of Orvieto, in particular the potatoes cooked in ashes (Patate cotte sotto la cenere) and braised rabbit with fennel. Perhaps if we had dined at the more rustic La Palomba or Duca Orvieto we may have.

We did however drink our fair share of Orvieto wine. I'm no stranger to this perfect drop of white that is simply a mouthful of summer. It's dry, very dry, defying it's sweet and viscous origins, when it was a nectar made for visiting popes. Now it is light, ranging from neutral with the scent of apple seeds when cheap to the better versions which can be perfumed like an Umbrian summer courtyard - rockmelon, honeysuckle and lemon rind mixed with crisping grass of the dried fields and a dewy whisper of summer rain.

As with all Italian lunches, we finished with a roll to the nearest Gelato supplier, which turned out to be the best we had tried in Italy (Gelateria Pasqualetti)



Fortunately, as with many towns in Umbria, Orvieto welcomes the stranger just to walk its streets in peace. Sometimes the greatest sights are not the grandest, the most famous. If you like that kind of thing, then of course you must visit the Torre del Morro, St Patrick's Well, The Albernoz Fortress, The Pozzo della Cava and one or more of the many palazzi or museums.

But you may well find that you miss all the little things that make Orvieto what it is today. You won't discover the restoration of a tiny chapel on Via Santo Stefano, so old and forgotten it's not even on the map anymore. You probably won't have time to play with the legs of a Pinnochio puppet with your four-year-old, or rummage through old maps in dusty stores in side alleys. You won't have time to touch the thousand-year old walls lining the streets, and practice your burgeoning Italian with a curious nonna at her post box. I guess it's all a matter of priorities, but if I went again, I'd make sure I had at least two days so I could do a bit of both...

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Orvieto (map) is one of the major sights of Umbria, but often missed in preferance of other towns such as Assisi, Spoleto, Todi, Perugia and Gubbio. It is an easy train journey from Rome, and so many will take it up in a day, but as I have mentioned, something will have to give.

Stay:
In town on a budget: La Casa di Tufo
In town mid-budget: Hotel Duomo
In town with no budget: Hotel Piccolomini
out of town ooh la la: La Badia
Or where we did in a holiday rental an hour's drive away: Tartagli Bassi

Some useful links:
Orvieto Wine Tours
Orvieto Tourism Official Site
Tourist map of Orvieto
Orvieto Underground

*Byron Roe Photography are a US based team who have the enviable job of traveling around the world to photograph weddings in exotic locations. They have kindly allowed me to use their photo, which was the only one I could find that justified the beauty of this town on the rock. You will have to ask Byron where he was when he took it. 

Venice - seeing the gondola half empty

Sometimes, when I'm in Venice, I hate it. Then I get home, and I wonder why on earth I wanted to go at all. It's expensive. The food is less than average. In summer it smells, winter it floods. It is a tourist trap of the highest proportions. Nobody really lives there anymore. It is a ghost town eating travellers souls, selling them breakable trinkets and carefully designed antique squalor, Italian french fries, american coffee, contrived opera and $100 rides in $10 boats.

Then I forget about it for a while. The pain in my wallet eases. I get ripped off in a different destination. I spend too long staring at concrete and mirrored glass, and I flip through a gallery or two of photos. Then I want to go back.
By God, the place is beautiful - there really is nowhere else on earth like it. I don't care how many places call themselves "little Venice" - they're dreaming. But Venice's singular beauty is it's greatest destroyer. As is likely in all areas that become adored, of high demand, then of high price, the broad spectrum of residents dwindles until the culture is sucked away and delivered to more affordable areas. What is left? Tourism and Lindsay Lohan.

Piazza San Marco has become a waiting room for the surrounding attractions. Queues choke the space like a boa constrictor, making it impossible to sit in the sun affront Caffe Florian and enjoy the blinding white parade of columns whilst sipping on ten euro espresso. Inevitably one ends up with an American in one's lap. (Nothing against Americans, but if I'm going to have someone on my lap, I'd rather it be a tall dark Venetian). I've seen the inside of the square's main attractions on previous visits, which is fortunate. I don't have to wait for hours in the sun and view them again - I just don't think I could face it.

Petty crims sell terrible knock-off handbags in front of the Doge's palace and the gondola station, tainting the scene like the preverbial fly in the ointment, and yet, it still makes for a beautiful photo. It's now illegal to feed the pigeons, it's said. They are destroying national monuments with all their sitting around and pooping. But I can see the mess left by the tourists, and this mess of tourists themselves (of which I am one). Another case of man defeats nature, and now one less thing for the kids to do while you are people watching.

Exiting Piazza San Marco is even more difficult than remaining within it. The alleys are like quicksand - the more you move, the deeper you sink. It's best to simply relax and be carried with the flow of the crowd - although don't expect to have your wallet when you reach safety. A small price - I'm sure many don't ever get out at all.

Dining close to the Piazza can also be fraught with danger. I was however lucky enough to be thrust one day into Trattoria do Forni. A plush and wholeheartedly Venetian restaurant once a monastic bakery, and now filled with burly looking wealthy tourists and nostalgic whispers from the hearty guestbook, both famous and infamous. It has a definite gangster feel about it, clandestine, dark and cool, secret and special - non-literally miles away, and yet just a stones throw from the chaos of the Piazza.

There are a few other decent options for stomach fulfillment, but often much further afield. You should ask the bar tender at Harry's Bar while you are sipping a very expensive bellini - he will probably give you some more up-to-date recommendations, but look out for Hosteria da Franz. It used to be on a sleepy wide canal bordering the Giardini della Biennale, but success has seen them close their doors to open further in towards San Marco. Let's hope it doesn't lose it's back-lane style and its reputation for some of the most authentic home-cooked dishes in town. If you manage to get into the new one, look for the bigoli in salsa - rustic coarse spaghetti, and the sarde in saor - sweet and sour marinated sardines, served here with pine nuts. They are also famous for a mamma's recipe tiramisu.

But my favourite little place was one I stumbled into quite by accident. Trattoria da Bepi. (Please don't make the mistake and go to Osteria da Bepi - that's the opposite of this little gem) No canal views, no outdoor tables, no bells and whistles, but wonderful honest food, family run, and completely set aside from the tourist trail. I've eaten there more than three or four times over the years, and it never disappoints, although the black and white bistro gatto has disappeared. They make a superb baccalà Mantecato - a creamed cod dish with crispy bread, but just talk to Loris - he'll set you straight on the rest of the menu. I love Rick Steves' story of a night here, and it appears he had just as much  fun with the carefully selected wines and grappa as I did.

Another escape from the throng can be found on Giudecca. Most never find their way over the water to these mismatched islands of new money and old ruin. But there are two treats - first, before the sun goes down, wander through the old flour mills and granary that are now the Hilton Molino Stucky hotel, and find your way to the rooftop, where you can order an overpriced Aperol Spritz, but suck up the best view in Venice for free.When your eyes are full and your stomach is grumbling, stroll down to Ai Cacciatore, for good local seafood and a local crowd (but avoid if it's busy - it collapses under pressure), waterside without the flotsam of populace and the lackluster "tourist menus" that you will find on the offshoots of the Grand Canal. (Or go to Cip's club if you're feeling flush)


There is always the market - a heaving melee of seafood, chillies, toy poodles, fetid puddles, pooping pidgeons and photographers. It's a destination for any food traveller to seek out, and kills two sightseeing birds with the one stone, as you can weave through the clutter of the Rialto Bridge on your way there. Unfortunately you probably won't have a kitchen, (unless you join a culinary day tour) but you can assess the seasonal offering, making in-restaurant choices more informed, you can grab some fresh fruit to stave off the travellers scurvy and sample some wicked hot chocolate at a standing room only bar like Ai 10 Savi or Cantina do Mori whilst learning how to speak like a Venetian with the generously proportioned market men.

It's odd. Each time I have visited Venice, my favourite district eludes me until it's nearly time to go. Like all obsessed travellers, I suppose I must delve into the unknown before revisiting the hackneyed past. Cannaregio is Venice as it is supposed to be. Quiet, romantic lanes, tunnels leading to surprise inner courtyards, impromptu market stalls, canaries in windows, grannies knitting in rickety Thonet chairs in the streets. The bakeries in this area are cheaper and being less tainted by untraditional tourist demands, provide a more concise array of sweeties peculiar to the area. The further you walk towards Ghetto Embracio, the better it gets.

Cannaregio also holds my favourite palace - the Ca d'Oro. No queues, no pretension, but exquisitely preserved, and with a floor that is the tesselated tile equivalent of the Sistine Chapel. Upstairs is a gallery of treasures and a balcony that overlooks the Grand Canal where you can provide a royal wave to the plebians below and believe if just for a moment that you belong there.

While loitering in Cannaregio, literary gremlins should seek out the Libraria Acqua Alta (map here). It's a decrepit den of prose and dusty old junk, with a good collection of aged prints and maps, a sweet section on erotica, a family of cats, a back door guarded by a plastic fish that steps directly onto the canal, and a full sized gondola holding a shipload of venetian novels and history. There is a sign on the door that says "bed and breakfast" - only for the brave, I would suggest.

All historic cities have a living heart which makes them unique. I've discussed already the personalities of Paris and Vienna. The former an aloof place, requiring patience and work to appreciate, but the potential to reward you as a lover once conquored. The latter, possibly the same, but like many great beauties gives the impression there's not much going on inside. Venice is the opposite - it's a brash wench that sprinkles you with fairy dust, screws you over and spits you out, and yet for some reason you keep returning for more.

Next time, I'm going to stay in Dosaduro, and explore the scholars' quadrant. I'm going to bypass St Mark's square, and instead, visit the Museo Correr and it's cafeteria with a lofty view of proceedings. I'll finally get to San Giorgio Maggiore. I'll dine at Bistrot de Venise and Alla Vedova. I'll visit the veggie garden behind the Church of Santissimo Redentore. I'll go in Autumn, and take my wellies.

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Where to stay:

• Casa Santa Maria Formosa Golden Triangle location near Rialto Bridge, Piazza San Marco and Cannaregio. Great value, canal views, ancient building, huge connecting rooms, good with the kids, terrible breakfast.
• Hotel Giorgione Quiet, romantic, pretty garden, gorgeously hideous venetian bedrooms, sleepy bar with pool table.
• I think I'm going to stay at La Calcina or Ca Maria Adele next time - depending on budget.

The Prize - Palio at Citta Della Pieve

It's hot. Parched, and yet dripping, I'm pent up like a pressure cooker. My children are whining, I have a headache, my husband has not been seen since he left us at the city gates to find somewhere to park the coach. Nobody here speaks my language, yet they chatter incessantly. Cheeky looking wenches laugh at my little boy with his blond curls, pointing at him - he's different, not from around here. He doesn't need to open his mouth to tell them that. Our clothes are alien, and although we wait like they do, it's in a different manner - they know what is coming, but we don't.

Some men stride towards me, mail clinking, leather crunching, smelling like polecats. They are armed - two with bows, one with a mace and the other with an axe. "STAND BACK", their leader says. He knows my language - he doesn't bother to speak to me in my own. Finally my husband runs up, swooping in for the little one, and bringing him into line before the big man does it for him. Then, the horns begin. The pierce the fetid air around us like an icy blast, and then are themselves interrupted by the canons. The children cower at the wall, hands over their ears, eyes squinted - both shut for shock, and open for curiosity.

 

We are in Citta della Pieve, in the commune of Perugia, somewhere around the middle of the sixteenth century. We have wandered into the red and blue district, Terziere Casilino, clergy people, although the women certainly don't look like nuns, and the men are not looking at them as monks should. The whole scene puts me in mind of Fergie singing "Be Italian" in Nine to the altar boys. Although everyone is fully clothed, in fact, one may say, overly clothed in this weather, there is a Latin raunchiness in the air that suits the setting. It's the Palio or summer festival, where the three districts of the town meet and compete. But first, there is a parade - a puffing of chests and a stamping of feet, something akin to a narcissistic bull getting ready for a fight, and it's hard not to get swept up. It's wonderful. Passionate. Colourful. We follow the marchers for a short time. They are moving slowly, preening, chatting, sweating in their velvet. But then we hear gunshots ahead, and we run.



Ahead, the Borgo Dentro parade, the mayor in the lead, and the aristocracy of town following. Their parade seems larger - if not in size, then definitely in importance. The men strut like black and yellow cocks, chests forward, shoulders back, noses in the air. The infantry fire muscats every ten metres, and the smell of battle fills the air. Then the horses come, unperturbed by the dissipating gun-smoke, trotting as proudly as their masters. Here comes oxen - tall as horses and twice as heavy, now the executioner, his face almost visible behind his hessian head-cone. And then the teenage girls, dressed like ancient roman vestal virgins in white with floral wreaths in their hair. Finally come the sweetly-adorned tots, strung between maids more simply dressed and carrying samples of the summer harvest in baskets on their hips. The children are divided - they smile and wave or cry and cower.

 

When the gentry have passed, finally the rabble can arrive, and Terziere Castello enters the fray. And rabble they are. They juggle, play lively music, dance, shout, laugh, breathe fire and congregate in a disorderly manor. Their horses shit on the cobblestones and they dance on through it, having too much fun to care. We follow the procession through to the church square. Here the spectators are thick, and everybody stops. We can't get through. The people here are louder, we can't figure out why, and then the first snowball hits. Within moments, we are all covered in flour, as are the tail end of Castello, and everybody else in the vicinity. A court jester stands at a cart handing out bags to children, and those young at heart, and within five minutes, the square looks like it is in the depths winter.

The front of the parade has moved into the arena and the crowd is also thinning on the streets, and filing into the bleachers. The trumpets are tooting non-stop now, and the drums beat, heavier and heavier, faster and faster. The crowd beat their legs in time, and finally, there is action. The games are about to commence.

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Palio is one of the best, but not the only parade of its kind in the Umbria and Tuscany area (links to festival listings). There was one in Volterra on the same day, both culminations of a longer summer festival. "Palio" translates as "prize", and is not the only, or most famous event by that name. It also applies to the famous Siena Palio horse race, where the 17 "contrade" compete twice a year. It's quite a spectacular.

We ate at Hotel Vannucci, well worth the visit, both for it's excellent regional food and it's leafy elegant garden. We stayed at Tartagli Bassi, in Paciano, about 20 minutes drive through beautiful countryside.

      

Reflections on Five Lands

I’ve just been scanning through my photographs of the Cinque Terre and trying to figure out what I should tell you about it. You see, my thoughts initially were that the Cinque Terra gets built so high, that when you get there, you are inevitably let down. I was going to talk about the final day, when I climbed up the hill at Vernazza, through the vineyards and market gardens, and realized what I had been missing. That the Cinque Terra must be seen from above to be appreciated. But when I look at these shots, I realize it's not just the lofty views that amaze people - every single one of them has grabbed something beautiful.

And so, I’m a little stuck. You know those holidays you take, where you don’t enjoy them as much when you are within the midst of them, as you do when you look back at them? It’s almost like you need some space to give you a true perspective. I remember Malta was like that. When we were there, it was so hot, I was just tired and sweaty all the time. But I don’t even have to look at my photographs to recall how incredible that place was. The Cinque Terra's great flaw is the crowds, and now I have distance from them, I can properly appreciate the beauty and the singularity of the place.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have had many Mediterranean holidays by the water. And so I had compared the Cinque Terre views to Positano, the architecture to Varenna, the lifestyle to Capri, the food to the Cote d’azur, the water to Korcula, and the crowds to Venice. Compared with all the other places, the Cinque Terre comes in second best (except for the crowds – even Venice had its escapes in parts of Dorsaduro and Cannaregio.) But when I consider the total package, the Cinque Terre really does tick a whole heap of boxes.

It’s a holiday for young and old. The transport is well organized and for Italy, fairly reliable. The area does not have to be explored via the goat tracks that join the towns, but can be done via the sea or rail, and the main parts of the towns are easily navigatiable, even if you want to avoid the hills. I can imagine my Mum and Dad shuffling down the main alley of Manarola, artisan gelato in hand, finding a perch on a sea-wall and watching all the pretty young things engage in bizarre mating rituals or tramping down from the cliff walks with jangling backpacks and the glow of adrenaline. 


The kids will find playgrounds in every town. Like the elderly, they enjoy the icecream, and the diet of pizza and spaghetti Napoli. They also watch the teens and backpackers, and urge them to jump off the 15 metre rocks into the crystalline water, cheering when they do, jeering when they don’t. But the favourite part for them is the transport between the towns – ferry, yacht, double-decker trains, walks on tiny tracks, and up spindly stairs, racing away from their unfit parents to get the winning first look at the view at the top.



And for me and my husband, we loved the swimming, but without the death-defying jumps. We ate at restaurants perched on precapices, wedged in caves and hanging into the water. We drank Prosecco or espresso with our breakfast in the sun with cornetti al cioccolato and panini with rough-cut pancetta. We laughed at our children chasing pigeons and each other in the piazzas. We worked off our carbohydrate-filled diets with sunset walks on cliff-tops, and rewarded ourselves with aperitifs at bars on top of the world. We snapped pictures from the water that I look at now with wonder.  



 
You see, the Cinque Terre has something for everyone. That’s why it is so crowded - in Summer, anyway. It’s a trade off. We are all searching for that perfect holiday – you know, the secret one. But the fact is, if you are a main-stream traveller, it simply doesn’t exist. It has been found, time and time again, but millions of others. Without the crowds, you don’t get the infrastructure. The sights bring the the people, and there is no escape. I’m not saying there aren’t beautiful AND peaceful places in the world. But it’s unlikely you will find them with a Michelin starred restaurant and a TGV train station within walking distance.

So forgive the area it’s one great downfall, appreciate it for what it is, and you will enjoy it. Hopefully not as I did, upon reflection, but in the moment, as you should. 

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The Cinque Terre, or “Five Lands” is a UNESCO listed strip of towns on the Ligurian coast, on the Mediterrarean in northern Italy, encompassing Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso al Mare. Each town has it’s own unique character, while all look similar from the sea.



Monterosso al Mare has the only sandy beach, and is a long, and large village split into the township and the beach. It has the biggest range of hotels, and the greatest population. Vernazza is where we stayed, and is one of the smaller villages, with a small sandyish beach and a better swimming area off the rocks. It has a great selection of restaurants, and many think it is the prettiest. Accommodation is small-scale pensiones and apartments. Corniglia has no beach access (but a new elevator to the train station), and is the smallest, highest and quaintest of the lot. It still almost has a feel of a non-tourist town. Manarola was my favourite – as pretty as Vernazza, but without the throngs of youths taking up all the good sunbaking positions. The swimming was the nicest here – crystal clear, and easy access (off rocks), and there were also some lovely restaurants. Riomaggiore is the most famous, and has the handy option of an elevator to the top of town if you are not so keen on the stairs - worth it to trek to the top - this is where the best vineyards are.

Ferries, trains, tracks and roads run between the towns. It is also possible to charter a boat between them. One would be able to see all towns in the one day, but it would be hard work. The walks between vary in difficulty, so if you are an inexperienced walker, make sure you pick and choose carefully. We spent two nights in Vernazza, and could have done with at least one more, probably two, ideally a week.

We stayed at the last place available at late notice, Lulu rooms, which was serviceable, fairly well positioned, but not memorable, although they did allow the four of us to sleep in the one room, which almost made the inflated price tag bearable. Next time I’ll stay in Manarola’s La Toretta or maybe Hotel Porta Roca in Monterosso. Those who like true luxury generally stay in the bigger hotels in Sestri Levante, or Portofino, and train down for day trips. Poor man’s Cinque Terre, Levanto, is also far from ugly, and a very affordable option with easy connections via train or boat.

Eat at the iconic Blue Marlin Café in Vernazza for breakfast (or a nightcap at the other end of the day), Aristide in Manarola for lunch, and for the sunset views over the water, Belforte in Vernazza for dinner if you’re splurging, or La Torre if you’re on a budget (they also have basic rooms at La Torre).