Mixed Bag of Fish from the Gulf of Poets

Motivated by the beautiful hike from Manarola to Corniglia, I wanted to spend the last day of 2019 hitting another village-to-village trail and asked the Cinque Terre park man at the Manarola train station if there were similar trails open between other villages. He described a nice route (I learned these alternate routes are part of the Sentiero Rosso, Red Trail) between Monterosso and Vernazza so I planned to early train it to Monterosso, check out the village for an hour or two and then hike to Vernazza in time to enjoy late afternoon light and sunset in the village before heading back to Riomaggiore to ring in the New Year. Oh yeah, I moved to an apartment in Riomaggiore over the weekend. And totally forgot to post pics. Oh well, I’ll throw it in the next post. Anyway, thought I would check to see if any of the other coastal paths opened up (Sentiero Azzurro, Blue Trail), maybe I could get three villages in! Some online Cinque Terre trail sites listed a few as open. Manarola man said no, Riomaggiore guy said no, so I figured I would go to the Cinque Terre park office in Monterosso to see if that park person would say yes. Nope. But I did get this kick-ass map!

Well, even with my super fantabulous cartoon map, I got lost in Monterosso, not in my usual way of going the wrong way, I mean, come on, it’s highlighted. But lost in the way I love to get lost. Who knew the winter beach would be so enchanting, small pebbles pulling off the mirage of fine white sand, stretching about maybe a mile toward Vernazza. I would imagine it’s chock-a-block with bodies in the summer, but now, in December, just a handful of people slowly getting lost in the winter sun. The park lady suggested I walk up the stairs to the convent for the panoramic view every town offers, and then walk through the “very traditional center” up to the parking lot to pick up the trail to Vernazza. Why do the park people always send me to parking lots? Still, sounded like a plan.

And then, this happened…

So guess I’m not walking to Vernazza today! Didn’t think I’d want to spend too much time in Monterosso, but boy I was wrong! Was totally hypnotized by the salmon-colored buildings and all those arches! Spent a lovely hour in an adorable enoteca, surrounded by music and nostalgia. Hiking schmiking. Did a quick reboot and decided to hit Corniglia on my way back to Riomaggiore. I didn’t spend any time there after my hike the other day because I was utterly exhausted and it was already almost dark when I arrived. And for some reason I thought Corniglia was small enough and hopefully didn’t have a bunch of street arches to bewitch me.

I have seen A LOT of sunrises and sunsets in my 52 years on this planet, but I honestly almost could not handle this one. It actually made me shake. And cry a little. I’m sure being the last day of a kinda crappy year for so many people probably had something to do with that, but standing directly in the path of the setting sun in a village that always looks as if it’s on the verge of a sunset, upped the volume of emotion to 11.

After being rattled to reality on the tourist train back to Riomaggiore, I was kinda hoping the cute little specialty store in my town that sold pancetta was open so I could just cook and not have to go out anywhere. No such luck…but the COOP was still open so I grabbed a handful of grapes and some vino, but they didn’t have any pancetta. I didn’t really need the ham, but dinner would be so much better with it. There were a few places in town that were open, one restaurant that advertised a 100 euro price tag on their NYE dinner, which I wouldn’t even do in NYC at this point in my life. Thought I’d check it out anyway, just in case that didn’t pan out for them, or I would just make some hamless pasta.

Da Dulin did have the 100 euro party but it didn’t start until 9 and I don’t think they sold out every table so I was able to have a delicious, reasonably priced NYE meal. I was intrigued by something I saw on their menu when I strolled by a few days ago.

Of course the English translation made me laugh, although I’m looking at the Italian and think nothing got lost in transliteration. The waitress’ description of the preparation also wasn’t too appealing, fish in a plastic bag kinda sounds like sea garbage (although she did say it was delicious), so I just had to order this poetic bag of festive fish!

Had a few hours to kill after dinner, normally I would just go to bed, but wanted to do the 12 grapes at midnight, a tradition I experienced many times in Spain that I like and made my own. I went to the scary bar and ordered a scary drink, just waiting around for midnight in Ireland. 1 wish for each grape for each of the 12 strokes of midnight. All my wishes were for good physical and mental health for everyone I love who was especially challenged by either in 2019. And I threw in some lottery wishes too, I mean I did have 12. Buon anno novo!