Day Forty-Eight - Manarola

Today was quiet. There were no more crashing waves on the rocky headlands and now we could hear clearly the villagers talking to each other from the lanes below. Each day at seven o’clock in the morning we hear the church bells strike seven followed by further thirty-five tolls. We are yet to find out why the number thirty-five. The sea is now clear and turquoise and we can see through to the rocks at the bottom. It is such a contrast to the past few days.
We are making the most of the three day Cinque Terre pass. We caught the train to Riomaggiore at about ten o’clock. We firstly went to their wifi hotspot and loaded our blog and read our emails. Bigpond.com is driving us crazy with its slowness. All other websites we are accessing are very quick but not Bigpond!
Riomaggiore is similar to Manarola as it has only one main street which goes straight down to the harbour. Once again there were many boats lining the harbour and lower main street. We had a wonderful morning tea of coffee and home made jam tarts high on a rocky outcrop overlooking the Riomaggiore harbour. It was a perfect day.
We walked around the headland to a very stony beach where a family was swimming in the cool, clear water. From here we walked to the far end of the town up the steep main street to a little museum which described the establishment of the five villages which make up the Cinque Terre. All were established as independent, small villages in the thirteenth century. Life seemed to be hard right up to the twentieth century until the railway was installed and tourism became an industry.
Riomaggiore is a town which attracts young backpackers and much of the accommodation advertised in the main street was targeting this market.
From Riomaggiore we decided to take the train to Levanto. It is about twenty minutes from Riomaggiore and only five minutes from the northern Cinque Terre town of Monterosso. Although it is very close to Cinque Terra we felt we were in the “real Italy” as it is not a tourist town. It has a wide, gritty beach and the town is largely flat. It was afternoon siesta time as we walked around the streets. We even found the Italian equivalent of a laundrette called a lavendara and is open twenty-four hours a day!
The trains to Manarola from Levanto were infrequent so we took a train to Riomaggiore and caught a train from there back to Manarola. When we arrived at Manarola late in the afternoon we had a gelato and sat in the main street watching the passing parade.
We had dinner in a restaurant overlooking the sea and watching the sun set. I felt like Shirley Valentine! At one stage in front of our view was one of the many little boats which was lowered into the harbour with an overhead winch.
Tomorrow is our last day at Cinque Terre before we move on to Rome. We have one last town, Corniglia to explore.
Photos: Riomaggiore’s main street and boats leading to the harbour; Me on stony beach of Riomaggiore; Levanto at siesta time.