Joanne's long walks: Cammino verso Assisi (Via della Costa) Day 5: Vernazza

Vernazza was a lot nicer at 8 am this morning, without all the tourists. It never ceases to amaze me how tourists sleep away the best hours of the day! Even though I took the popular coastal path from Vernazza to Corniglia, I met hardly anyone along the way. It began with a steep climb, fortunately still in the shade, which took me high above the town and into the terraced olive groves perched on the hillsides high above the sea.

I arrived in Corniglia around 9:30, just as the town and its visitors were waking up. I didn't explore the village, as I have been there many times before, but popped into the 13th century church of San Pietro, topped up my water supply at the fountain and turned uphill onto path no. 587, then no. 586, the "Via dei Santuari" towards Volastra and the Santuario delle Madonna della Salute.

Corniglia

Corniglia, now far below

It's harvest time in the Cinque Terre! The region is renowned for its "heroic wines" grown on steep terraced slopes over the sea, among the most labour-intensive wines Italy produces. I was able to observe the truth of this as the workers were out harvesting the grapes, crouching down below the vines, which are trained on pergolas, filling big red boxes with grapes, though they no longer carry these up and down the slopes on their backs: they load them onto little cars that run on tracks up to the top of the slope, where they are transferred onto an ape on the road to be taken to the winery.

The varietals grown in Cinque Terre are Vermentino, Bosco and Albarola, which are used to make dry white wines and a precious raisin wine, Sciacchetrà. That's why some of the grapes have been left on the vines, looking like they are slowly turning into raisins!

This dizzyingly beautiful trail took me to the village of Volastra, where I visited the Madonna della Salute and then attempted to find the turnoff to trail no. 530 to the Santuario del Montenero. I asked a man in trail running gear who was filling his water bottle at the fountain and looked as if he might know his way around, but he didn't know... we looked at the map together and then he concluded with "too bad we're going different ways, it would have been very nice to walk together for a bit!" I wasn't sure whether to take this as a compliment; I was wearing a wide-brimmed sunhat, big sunglasses and a face mask, so he must have had absolutely no idea what I looked like. I could have been hideously deformed under all that gear, and he never would have known... well, I guess he just would have appreciated some (female) company, of any kind!

After a couple of false starts, I decided I would stop at a bar at the crossroads to get a cold drink and ask for directions. I asked the lady who seemed to be running the place where the trailhead was, and her answer was quite cordial and very detailed, even though she seemed to be giving everyone else who came into the establishment a sample of "traditional Ligurian hospitality". A group of foreigners who sounded like Americans (in 2020? Surely not... perhaps they were Americanised Canadians, from Toronno? I didn't ask) came into the bar and she muttered under her breath in dialect in response to every request as she served them - or not; she said she was out of most of the items they asked for!

After this amusing interlude I continued on my way, following the bartender's directions and finding the trail with no trouble. This new trail climbed even higher, until even Volastra, which appears to be perched high up when you see it from the Cinque Terre villages below, was far below me, its colourful houses now looking like the miniature homes in a traditional Christmas creche, a presepe.

This part of today's route was less interesting, and less photogenic. The paved road led to the cemetery and then turned into a dirt track which was mostly deserted. Only one car passed by, as well as a number of mountain-bikers, a couple of German hikers, and a large group of adolescents all wearing matching hot pink t-shirts issued by the Diocese of Genoa, suggesting they were participating in some sort of summer camp. I stopped on the way to pick blackberries - if walkers wore bumper stickers on their rear ends like cars do, mine would say "I brake for blackberries" - and to eat my slice of cold pizza left over from last night, when I was too tired to cook.

Madonna della Salute, we need you!

Volastra

Volastra now far below, and Manarola even farther

After walking round several curves inland and then out again as the trail followed the shape of the mountain slopes, I finally spotted the sanctuary out at the tip of the next turn, and then the town of Riomaggiore, 325 metres below. I had been looking forward to getting another cold drink and a stamp for my pilgrim passport at the sanctuary, but unfortunately everything was shut, both the bar and the church. I asked later at the park information office and was told that it is only opened on four special days of the year and kept shut the rest of the time "for safety reasons" which have nothing to do with Covid; it has been shut for several years now. I guess I hadn't been up here for a while... in any case, it was rather sad. So I left the sanctuary without even stopping to take a photograph of it (it's not particularly photogenic anyway) and followed the 3 km "Via Grande", an ancient road paved with flagstones between the sanctuary and the village of Riomaggiore.

Arriving in Riomaggiore from the top rather than from below, as one usually does when coming by train or boat, I stayed on a higher level in this town of many layers. Having expended my last remaining energy exploring the higher reaches of Riomaggiore, I has happy to discover that it's possible to reach the train station going over the top instead of through the tunnel, and that there was a train departing in a quarter of an hour that would take me home for the evening.