La Fine e Il Vino

The most perfect week of my life has come to a close and there’s a train ticket on my table with tomorrow’s date on it. I’m telling myself to get excited for Parma, my next travel destination and the beginning of my first ever solo backpacking trip, but leaving Cinque Terre feels like leaving home. In fact, departing from Manarola feels harder than leaving home because I don’t know when I’ll be back.

I’m afraid I’ll forget the little things. The way it smells here, like the sea, citrus, sun, soil – the same fragrances of California but a different perfume. The way people park their boats in front of their houses and hang their laundry out to dry. The way parents call their children amore, love, like a second name. The way gardeners leave the blossoms on the zucchini to sell at the market. The weight of the big, old-fashioned keys that open the wine cellar doors. The names of the wildflowers. The specific shade of pink paint on the houses.

Part of me wanted to wallow in my preemptive nostalgia and spend the day sitting on my balcony, staring out at my stunning view of Manarola until it was seared into my eyes, but luckily I had reason to be pleasantly distracted – a trip to Riomaggiore and a hike to the sanctuary of the Madonna of Montenero with a new guide, Chiara.

I’d seen Riomaggiore from atop the mountains while hiking and out in the ocean while boating, but this was my first trip into the center of the town. I found it was similar in size to Manarola and the community seemed just as tight-knit. Everyone smiled and stopped their work to talk with Chiara as we walked by. One woman even handed me a soft, fresh apricot she’d just picked.

Because everyone in Cinque Terre has known one another for decades, it can be easy to feel like an outsider here, but if you know one person, the entire town becomes your friend.

As a native of Riomaggiore and a guide by profession, Chiara is simultaneously rooted in the Cinque Terre tradition, while being subject daily to the tourism culture here. From this unique perspective, she had a lot to say about striking the right balance between the two.

We should all strive to leave a place better when we leave it – or at least to support the authentic heritage rather than just the tourist culture. Repeatedly throughout my time here, I’d been told the best way to support Cinque Terre is to drink Cinque Terre wine. Look for bottles of white wine made in one of the five towns, or perhaps La Coopertiva, a wine made with grapes from the entire Cinque Terre vintage each year. I highly recommend buying a bottle of the dry white wine called Costa da Posa. (If you happened to buy two and want to share… I’ll be there.)

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With my time in Cinque Terre already changing from the clarity of the present into a rosy pink and sparkling blue mosaic of memories, I'd like to once again thank World Nomads, Parco Natzionale delle Cinque Terre and Can't Forget Italy for the incredible experience they've given me. I plan to take everything that I have learned along with me as a traveler, a writer and a cook. I can only hope that my life will continue to be filled with as much adventure and good food as it has been this past week. 

Two Fishermen Named Beppe and a Ride on the Monorail

I think that the only way to truly understand Cinque Terre is to spend a day out on a boat with a local fisherman. Luckily, I had the chance to do this. Unluckily, I tend to get seasick just looking at a boat. Nevertheless, I left Monterosso this morning on a fishing boat with two men named Beppe. They each looked the part of fishermen with their sea-worn, kind faces and soon I was dressed up in their waterproof fishing attire, wearing neon orange pants three times my size.

As we drove out into the ocean, the leading Beppe (the one who spoke a good amount of English) explained his history to me briefly and expressed his fears for the future. The government divides the sea around Cinque Terre and competition is fierce in certain areas. Beppe and his fellow fishermen struggle against the crews of larger fishing boats that are capable of catching more fish and selling them cheaply to the nearby restaurants.

Beppe’s major concern is not for his livelihood, but for the increasing unsustainability of the fishing industry. It is negatively impacting the marine life and ecosystem along the Cinque Terre coast and, furthermore, it’s destroying the local way of life. Beppe lamented that the younger generation of men would not pursue careers as fishermen, but he also expressed his understanding that these men would not want to be “losers”; they could not provide for themselves and their families in the way that their forefathers had and it was unfair to expect them to choose a doomed profession.

From only an hour of speaking with Beppe, I could see that he is a wise and tenacious man; it saddens me to think that he has resigned himself to the idea that a Cinque Terre tradition will die with him.

Photo courtesy of Seth Coleman (who told me it 'd make for a good shot if I threw up)

Nonetheless, he showed me the ropes (literally) about how to fish. I’d naively imagined sitting with a fishing rod for several hours, but instead it was our job today to pull up huge nets that had hopefully collected sea creatures. It would be a good day, Beppe told me, if we could find some lobsters. We pulled up the net for a long time and several fish flopped out onto deck, but before long my seasickness overcame me and I passed the remainder of the excursion lying flat in the center of the boat.

In the afternoon, we headed to Vernazza to tour the Cheo vineyards with winemaker Bartolomeo Lercari. Like oversized baskets of grapes, Seth and I piled onto the back of the monorail, a small train-like vehicle that runs along a skinny rail up the hills of Cinque Terre’s larger vineyards to accelerate the harvesting process. Over the roar of the motor, Bartolomeo explained how technological advancements such as the monorail have aided wine production in the region, which has particularly difficult topographical features to overcome.

Bartolomeo looked straight forward as he operated the monorail, but I gazed in awe at the breathtaking view of Vernazza below us. The monorail climbed ever upwards, at sometimes nearly vertically so that I had to hang on tightly or else fall out. When the ride came to a halt, we hopped out and ventured deeper into the vineyards, where we met up with his wife and his small, scruffy black dog.

The Lercaris spoke about their vineyards as if they were unpredictable, but loveable children – they explained that the vineyards require constant attention, but there were high hopes for the future. After suffering a terrible flood in Vernazza in 2011 that damage their wine production facilities and several storms that had ruined their grapevines, it was easy to understand Bartolomeo’s anxiety about the current crop.

After speaking with the two producers at Cheo, I began to see a thread run through the stories I’d heard in Cinque Terre – a sense of passion, even without profit and persistence, even without reward. I have so much admiration for the people I’ve met so far.

Lessons on Dry-Stone Walls, Ravioli and Wine

First, a bit of background…

All across Cinque Terre, the hills are lined with rows of short stonewalls – some are neat and orderly, others are overgrown with plants; in many places, the walls have crumbled into mere piles of rocks. Were I traveling here on my own, I might not have taken much note of the walls. They certainly make for an interesting landscape and some pretty pictures, but these structures (called dry-stone walls because they are built without cement) are integral to Cinque Terre’s heritage.

When the first people settled in Cinque Terre, they had to build these walls in order to cultivate the land because the hills are so steep. Long days were spent carrying heavy rocks up the hills and chipping away at the hard dirt to make terraces. The efforts of their labors – the kilometers of walls that wind along all of Cinque Terre’s landscape and rival the length of the Great Wall of China cumulatively – have withstood centuries, but they are more fragile than they seem. Without constant maintenance, plants begin to grow in the crevices and water can no longer stream between the rocks. The inventive design of the dry-stone walls is thus corrupted and when it rains, water floods behind the walls and the pressure causes them to collapse.

The art of building these walls – it truly is an art – rests on finding the right size stones to fit together, like a puzzle. Today, Cinque Terre’s youth isn’t very interested in learning how to build these walls and the older generation is concerned about who will continue to fortify the walls and create new ones after they’re gone.

To an outsider, the history of these walls and the current issues that revolve around them may not be apparent or important, but today I met with with Giampietro Ferri, a man who helped me not only to build a wall, but also to understand the significance of continuing the tradition.

We met up in the mountains where he keeps olive trees and honeycombs for the Busanco brand olive oil and honey that he produces. When I asked how he’d gotten to work in such a beautiful place, Giampietro explained that he had begun his career as a banker, but found that the work wasn’t meaningful enough to devote his life to it. His true passion was for the hard, rewarding labor of working the land.

Photo taken by my lovely Cinque Terre guide, Marzia Vivaldi

Together, we reconstructed a section of one of the walls on his property. He was eager to teach me how to choose the correct stone to fit along the wall so that it would create an even line along the perimeter and a flat surface on top. When I got the hang out it, he would praise me with a hearty “brava!” His enthusiasm was contagious.

Building the wall was hard work, but seeing Giampietro out in the sunshine amongst his olive trees, surrounded by his sons (whom he proudly referred to as “the future,” stressing the importance of their role in the olive groves), I could see how worthwhile his life’s work was and I am proud to have played a part in it. I may be one American tourist in Cinque Terre, but I lent a hand in the reconstruction of a medieval wall that may remain for centuries.

After working outside all day, it was time to get my hands dirty in the kitchen. As an avid cook, I was delighted by the news that I was going to prepare dinner, but I was even happier to find out I’d be making ravioli with a true Italian women, Franca.

I grew up hearing stories from both my parents about how their mothers and grandmothers had spent Sundays in the kitchen preparing pastas for dinner. For years, I’d been meaning to try my hand at making pasta (particularly my favorite type, ravioli). It seemed to me incredibly important in accessing some lost part of my heritage and perhaps it was for this reason that making pasta seemed a little daunting and I’d never tried. Then, all of a sudden, I found myself in Italy having an apron put on me by a cheerful, sweet woman who spoke hardly any English but was set on teaching me her family recipe.

Though my Italian vocabulary for baking is fairly basic, cooking is universal and I immediately felt comfortable, as I always do in the kitchen. Franca poured a small mountain of flour onto the table and demonstrated how to crack an egg into the center of it. We took turns with the dough, kneading it until it was the perfect texture and ready to be fed through the pasta machine. I cranked the pieces through several times each until they were soft, thin ribbons a few inches thick. We laid them out and put dollops of filling (hers featured mortadella, parmesan and spinach) across. We tucked over the sides and pressed them into individual pockets with our fingers, then used the scalloped tool to cut the edges for the signature ravioli shape. By the time they were ready to plop into boiling water, I had fallen in love with the pasta-making process… and the fresh lemon marmalade that Franca let me taste as they cooked.

In the meantime, I had the pleasure of sharing my first batch of ravioli with about a half dozen of my new Italian friends. We carried the bowls of pasta downstairs to a nearby neighbor’s cantina. What could be more Italian than eating ravioli in a wine cellar?

Franca and her husband, Gianni, introduced me to Luccio, their neighbor, who just so happened to be a local wine connoisseur. When I expressed my admiration of his wine collection in the cellar and his impressive display of different-sized wine glasses, Luccio’s eyes lit up. It was all I needed to say for a spur-of-the-moment, private lesson on wine.

It was a perfect night of drinking wine, eating ravioli, and afterward, listening to one of the guests play guitar.