To know the earth under one's foot and go, in wild delight, ways where there is water.
- Malcolm Lowry, Ultramarine
The sea! Today I finally reached the sea again, 89 days after leaving the seashore at Wissant!
From the Sanctuary of Soviore, 450 metres above sea level and above the town of Monterosso, last of the Cinque Terre, I walked downhill along the road to join path number 574, a gravel road which became a dirt track leading to the colourful village of Fontona.
The trail became a path down into the valley, where it joined a paved road passing through a place poetically named Albero d'Oro, and entered the town of Levanto.
Levanto is a beautiful town with a lot to see, and I recommend it as a base from which to explore the Cinque Terre; but today I stopped only long enough to obtain a stamp on my credential from the tourist office. I then walked down to the waterfront, and for the time on this route since leaving Wissant, on the English Channel, I came to the sea!
I left Levanto on a bicycle path that passes through five kilometres of former railway tunnels, emerging briefly to tempt me with the near-deserted sandy beaches of Bonassola before plunging back into the darkness of the railway tunnel, which continued all the way to the little fishing harbour by the railway station of Framura.
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| Bonassola |
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| Tempting beach of Bonassola |
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| Bonassola |
I passed through Anzo and climbed the steps up to Setta, where I stopped for lunch: the village had an open bakery and a bench in the shade, by a fountain, in a pretty little square. Framura has two hostels, the Perla del Levante in Anzo, closer to the sea, and another hostel high up in Costa, which, according to the date carved in stone over the door, has been open since the year 1400! 😮
I have always wanted to stay there... but it was early to stop walking, and in any case my route today did not take me all the way up to Costa, but turned off lower down the hillside. There are no more disused railway tunnels west of Framura, so the only way to go on is up and over the promontory. There are three ways to do this: around the north side, over the top, or the route I chose, around the sunny southern side, with views back toward the hamlets of Framura and over the sea.
The paved road turned to a dirt track among pine trees, which I eventually left to follow a steep trail down to Deiva Marina, coming out above the campground by the sea. This was the shortest route, and the one with the least elevation gain, but the downhill stretch into Deiva was very steep, on crumbling dirt and rock surfaces covered with leaves and loose pebbles. Such treacherous footing is just the thing when you're tired after a long day's walking! But I made it safely to the bottom, where I lost no time getting down to the beach for a refreshing October swim!
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| I was up there! |
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