We breakfasted again at the Pirate Café, taking advantage of their Wi-Fi to, among other things, see Emilia’s reaction to our video. Then it was off to the train station to buy a couple of day passes. The local line serves Levanto in the north to Spezia in the south and all the Cinque Terre towns between. Our plan was to go to the south having already explored Monterosso.
Riomaggiore is the southern most of the 5 towns. It is the largest village and, in Rick Steve’s words, the most workaday. To get to the town from the train station, we walked through a long pedestrian tunnel decorated on one side with cleverly set pieces of broken tile, marble, stone and glass.
Connie and I walked up the main street looking into shops and checking the café menus for anchovies. Yesterday she had strained a tendon behind her left knee and descending stairs was painful for her. When I suggested we take the high road back down, she declined and we said we’d meet at the bottom. What I had taken as a relatively short higher road parallel to the main road farther down toward the harbor turned out to be much more. At first it sloped down gently, but it was much longer, never neared the main street and eventually ended in a series of meandering, steep and narrow stairways (typical for these towns) that deposited me as far out on that side of the harbor that anyone could be. Fortunately a path led me back to the base of the mainstreet where we met up. Connie had actually walked the short upper road I thought I was setting out on.
One of the attractions of Cinque Terre is that you can walk between all of the villages. When we were up on a terrace overlooking the sea, we could see a walkway that disappeared around the point to the north. We got into a discussion with a few other tourists about whether or not you could walk the path to Manarola, the next town north. Connie and I told them that we were pretty sure the path had been closed because of storm damage. We had known that for some time, though we couldn’t remember where we learned it. One gentleman suggested it was just the same kind of warning that we got yesterday, and the general decision was that the people would try to take the walk. Well, it turned out that the path we saw was walkable, but only to the train on the other end of the pedestrian tunnel. We walked back through it and, while waiting for our train, I walked up to a point where I could see the beginning of the path to Manarola. There was definitely no getting over or around the gate. The path is still closed. I took a picture and showed it to Connie.
When we got off the train in Manarola, Connie and I began walking uphill. Most people headed down where there was more action. We were looking for a place to eat and thought the cafés thinned out pretty quickly, we kept climbing around each new bend. Finally, just before the road leveled out and opened to a square with a church, bell tower and overlook, we found a café that offered anchovies.
It was small with just 3 tables on its front porch, all occupied. But one couple were obviously finished eating and had just a little wine left in their glasses. We’d wait. He ordered another glass of wine. The second couple eventually had their dishes cleared and things were looking up. They ordered coffee. Still, we’d wait. The third couple ordered dessert. Still waiting. It’s Europe. Diners linger. But finally, couple number 3 got up to pay and we were able to sit down. At last, salted anchovies baked on a bed of tomatoes, garlic and potatoes. Connie had a frittata and the waitress suggested what turned out to be a great bottle of red wine. We both loved our dishes and we too lingered over the last of the wine and cappuccinos (no one was waiting for our table by then). Walking back down toward the harbor we agreed that it was the best meal we’d had on our trip.
We walked all the way down to the harbor. It is naturally protected by large rock formations, but is tiny. Boats have to be lowered down into the water suspended from a derrick located at street level. Though not that easy to access, it is considered one of the better places to swim. The water is deep there.
Between the tunnel to the train station and the harbor, Manarola is much more colorful and vibrant than Riomaggiore was. On our way back to the train station, we agreed that we liked it second best to Vernazza.