None shall pass (Cinque Terre)

Part of the reason we had to catch the train.

We both struggled to get out of bed this morning after another disrupted, hot night. It's our last day in Cinque Terre and we are going to visit Manarola. The only town we won't have been to is Corniglia. The 377 steps up to the town from the railway station have effectively ruled it out. We would have happily walked to Manarola - less than a kilometre from Riomaggiore, but the Via Dell'Amore is part of the Azzurre Sentiere that has succumbed to nature and, to quote Aesop Rock, "None shall pass!" (I apologise for the white-boy hip hop, particularly since he misquoted Gandalf anyway).

The usual breakfast, double espresso, OJ and pastry helped get us going. The ticket machine at the station was a possible hurdle. There are only two machines and they are very slow and perhaps not so easy to operate because the queues the other day were monumental. I thought I'd purchase tickets online but the site would not allow me to buy tickets for the morning, so the machines it would be.

Predictably there was a line up at both machines. Equally predictably we had only 10 minutes to catch our train and the next one was a 30 minute wait. The machines are slow because they want to talk to you, to warn you about pick pockets, to ask you to verify your selection and they offer a ticket for one way only and you need to repeat the entire process to get a return ticket. These would not be tolerated on the Metro, the Tube, the New York subway, or even Redfern station ...

The happy owners of two tickets each, we ran down the tunnel to the platform as the train was arriving. I tried to validate the tickets before I got on board, and think I managed to validate two out of four, but this could wait until Manarola. Thankfully the train was a little late - TrenItalia, late, who'd have thought it? Well, it worked in our favour today.

Manarola, a postcard photo

Looking towards the harbour

As I said, Manarola is less than a kilometre from Riomaggiore but since the track is closed, the only access is by water ferry or train. I suppose you could follow the road up and over the mountain but that would be far more than a kilometre and would take a lot more energy than the train.

Manarola is similar to Riomaggiore in that it is carved into the side of the mountain, it has a small harbour and many colourful buildings. There were the usual tourist stores selling over-priced merchandise, bars, restaurants and of course, a church and tower. It appeared to as that it was like the other towns we visited yesterday, far more crowded than Riomaggiore. There were the usual, ubiquitous tour groups, slavishly following the rag on a stick and plenty of other people pouring away from the station to the village itself. The flow of humanity headed for the water and then thinned somewhat as people were distracted by food and drink. The more determined tourists walked around the edge of the harbour towards the blue track. The water looked very inviting although, not knowing what to expect, we had not come equipped for swimming.

Looking up hill.

We thought we should have our regular rest and beer even though we hadn't walked far today to really earn either. The usual problem prevailed, the bars closer to the water were packed and the ones a little further away didn't serve draught beer. So, it was back home for refreshments.

Today we went further up the hill to Bar Centrale. Now I'm not criticising the speed of the service, but I did see two couples leave before placing an order and there was a skeleton sitting in the corner of the outdoor seating area with a bony finger raised perhaps to call the wait staff. Indeed, it took us petitioning three different wait staff before one could manage to provide us with il conto so we could pay and be on on our way. We also noted our 19€ was still sitting where we had left it on our table as we walked past 5 minutes later, having purchased some wine for our afternoon happy hour. Very trusting or relaxed people, the Italians.

Bar Centrale was however a great place to people watch and Jayne enjoyed watching the postal workers trying to deliver parcels. Unload the truck. Load the trolley, check the address, disappear into the crowd, return 15 minutes later with the parcels. Place them back on the truck, select a new parcel. Repeat. It was cause for celebration when a worker returned empty-handed.

The shirtless brigade continue to amuse. One guy turned up for lunch sans shirt. How do you think that would go down in Sydney say at Barangaroo or the Opera Bar? Not so good I suspect. Mind you, if I had a body like the one today, I would take my shirt off too. Sadly, though, in my experience, those who generally remove their shirts would be best to keep them on.

Now THAT is a handbag ... or is it a re-purposed wedding dress?

We are relaxing on the balcony listening to the waves and the sounds of Riomaggiore pre-dinner. You would know of my deeply entrenched love of all things Austen dear reader, her focus on the minutiae of life, all that bores me stupid. Well, I firmly believe we are there again. The current generation of selfie-takers, documenting their every move (I hope not movement), surely has surpassed her mindless commentary on balls and match-making. We just watched someone lean out of their window and take a photo of their bottle of beer. Admittedly it was an Italian beer, a Moretti, but really ... imagine slide night at his house on his return to the UK (yes, I'm profiling) and here is a picture of my first beer in Riomaggiore with the harbour in the background, and here is the beer I had at breakfast, and, oh, this one is great, here is the beer I had sitting on the stairs when I was too drunk to walk to the apartment. Seriously! What is that!

Coming to UK bookshops: "The beers I have consumed with picturesque backgrounds".