We may never pass this way again (Cinque Terre)

And so today Jayne went, what, in Australia, we would call bushwalking. More on that later, but I'm still laughing, in a supportive way. It certainly gave us today's title, a nifty little number by Seals and Croft from 1973. They are not a patch on Australia's only true, legendary R&B band, Stylus, ahhh, much love from the '70s.

They say, whoever 'they' are, that New York is the city that never sleeps. Well, perhaps 'they' are not so well travelled, because Riomaggiore definitely does not sleep. We pulled stumps around 11:30pm and they were still kicking on and I heard them into the morning. Mind you, they sleep a little later, but only a little. The bottle bins were being emptied at first light. It was like the recycling truck out the front of our house in the old days when they only did recycling once a month. Lots of crashing, breaking glass.

Eventually I prised myself from the bed and turned my thoughts to breakfast. No fresh OJ today but the coffee was awesome and the focaccia was, well, more than enough. Then it was through the tunnel to the train station and crowds. They are lemming-like, the crowds. Get to the platform and stop and stand there blocking access for everyone else. If only there was a cliff I could direct them toward ... hmmm. Now that's a thought.

The train arrived and half of Asia alighted, eyes glazed, focused on a tour flag. DO NOT stand between them and the tour flag dear reader, that is a death-defying act. One could easily be trampled. It is almost as terrifying as a Jane Austen character encountering a gypsy (or an erection). At least gypsies existed in Austen's time, the latter just caused one to feel flushed.

I digress. The train is quite unremarkable from a vista perspective because most of the journey between the 'five lands' is in tunnel. An engineer might view this very differently, however, for me it is just darkness and being trapped with people with whom I would choose not to die. One could grow mushrooms there.

Monterosso beach

Monterosso from part way up the mountain

We travelled the length of 'Cinque Terre' to Monterosso Al Mare through the other towns (yes Maz, I said hello to Manarola for you). Monterosso was certainly larger than Riomaggiore despite what the Lonely Planet guide says - I'm not sure what they use as their yard stick for 'largest'. The town features private beaches of black sand and multi-coloured umbrellas - no stones in sight. It seems very uncrowded - that is, until you hit the "historic town centre" and that's when you know you are in Cinque Terre.  Monterosso is not the photoshoot destination of the five lands - in fact the other lands tried to kick it out of the club in the 1940's. But it is picturesque and affords one of the two still available stretches of the original "goat track" hiking experience - the Sentiere, that originally was the only way to get from village to village, pre-TrenItalia. You used to be able to walk from Riomaggiore to Monterosso but landslides took out significant portions of the track and now you can only walk between Monterosso, Vernazza and Corniglia.  The rest you either have to train it or ferry it (today however, the ferry was suspended due to swell... they should try the Rottnest Island run to see what real swell is!)

Same again

Anyway, Jayne suggested we do the walk from Vernazza to Corniglio.  I suggested that doing the first stretch from Monterosso to Vernazza might be better because Corniglio, unlike the other four towns of the Terre is set up on the cliff away from the water. Even arriving by train you need to climb 377 steps to the town from the station. In Jayne's terms, that's more than the climb to the top of the L'Arc de Triomphe in Paris - and that is her benchmark.

Alora, we set out for Venazza. OMG. OK, I'm happy, I'm walking, the scenery is to die for, but the path is steep, like seriously steep and the steps aren't that solid or secure. I'm worried for Jayne - think 2012 dear reader and if you are new to my blog, the posts from Paris of that year. We left Monterosso and up and up and up we went. We met another couple of Aussies on the climb. One lady who was a part of a tour group and eschewing lunch with the crowd and a single young guy who was enquiring about the cost of the walk and where you pay.

I was trying to remember Jayne's description of the walk from yesterday; this climb didn't seem to be in keeping with what we had discussed. It was well-trodden and well-sign posted, but the markers were all red, I recalled Jayne talking about a blue track. Up and up we went. At one point we paused for breath and water and the view. I looked across at Jayne whose face now bore a striking resemblance to the track markers and said, "This was your idea and I still can't believe you suggested it." In all my years bushwalking, Jayne has accompanied me once and that was before Cait was born!

I told you it was steep - yep, that's Jayne.

The track continued to wind up the mountain side and we continued to play leap frog with other walkers. I was most annoyed with the lack of walker etiquette. Several times I stepped aside when I saw people walking towards to me because the track was too narrow in parts to allow anyone to pass safely. Only to have people from behind me just walk past and cause the oncoming walkers to stop for them.

Despite Jayne's glowing visage and huffing and puffing, she did extremely well and we either kept pace with or passed people who were younger than us. Although at one drink stop, Jayne did remark, "And I had to pay to do this". Despite the heat, humidity and significant level of exertion required to complete the track, we remained Australian and did not succumb to the European need to remove your shirt. This is clearly an unisex affliction as we saw a number of young ladies walking in their bras, carrying their shirts and many, many more shirtless men. Many of them should have taken into account other walkers and left their shirts on.

Vernazza.

We saw some interesting sights. People with inappropriate foot wear for the length of the walk and the grade of the track. People who were obviously ill-equipped to do such a walk in the heat of the day and weren't carrying water, although one man did carry one of his shoes. Significantly overweight people who should have been sitting in the shade somewhere. A girl on crutches - seriously.

Along the track, we came across two separate entrepreneurs: the first had set up a drinks and and other refreshments station, catering to walkers who were about to expire. He was squeezing oranges. Not sure what the mark-up was but the monopoly ensured significant recompense for any exertion in getting the wares up the track in the first place.

The second industrious marketeer was selling... jewellery of all things - not sure what business he was doing since earrings do not, in my book, fall in the category of essentials on a taxing walk but he had carted the stuff up there, table and all, so presumably he thought he had a market.

The estimated time for the walk was two hours - we did it in an hour and 40 minutes. Just as we were walking into Vernazzo, a medical officer was heading up the track to save some ill-prepared person.

Vernazza harbour

Finally we were in Venazza and went in search of a bar and two large beers. While there were plenty of bars, they were all packed and I had no intention of squeezing into a seat in the sun. Our search took us back to the train station so we caught the next train back to Riomaggiore and two large cold draught beers, in the shade away from the crowds.

Once we had returned home, Jayne reread the walk descriptions to discover to her disgust that we had, in fact, walked the red track, not the blue track - the one 90% of walkers tackle. The red track we had completed was designated for experienced walkers and therefore only attracted 10% of the foot traffic.

Our hosts had recommended a particular restaurant but suggested that we would need to book. The earliest sitting we could get for dinner was 9:30pm and that is usually past my bedtime. We declined the offer and found another place at 7pm. A group of young Aussies arrived just after us and Jayne was sure she knew one of the boys in the group. If he recognised her he didn't let on, so we continue our journey not officially having seen anyone from home (that we hadn't organised to see).

Arty shot of a flower.

Warning: the following scenes may offend some readers. The night proved to be even noisier than the previous one. You would know dear reader that I don't often identify groups of people by country of origin. I prefer you to apply your own racial profiling, but I am about to make an exception. If I had any idea where those ridiculously bloody loud Americans that woke us up at 2:30am were staying, I would have dropped in early this morning to say hello. And then hold pillows over their faces until they turned blue and stopped struggling. Inconsiderate morons.