September 15: SKIPPING THE CINQUE TERRE, STRAIGHT TO MENTON

Beach life, Menton

There is a kind of insanity in training eight and a half hours all the way north then west along the Mediterranean coast from Rome to Menton in one day. Mainly, it's the near-derangement caused by feeling bereft at not visiting the many beautiful, famous, and diverting places that one would usually get off at. Though it's not all bad...
 
Pisa, for example. I'm not pausing to tilt a gaze at its leaning tower. The other week on the Laguna I swear I saw a couple of Venetian church steeples that looked a tad askew. So, curiosity tourism based on sinking foundations? Already ticked that box. 
 
Or, the lure of a transporting detour from the main coastal trunk line, veering slightly inland to Firenze (aka Florence). Nah, not going there, either. Way too much risk of suffering from trembling delirium or fits of atheist pique brought on by an excess of gold-glinting, gory, religious art. Yes, there are all kinds of madness. 

People driven against the wall by the madness of religion and gold (actually part of Roberto Cuoghi's Imitazione di Christo, 2017, in Venice, but hey...)

However, notwithstanding the future risk of some truly horrific, long, shallow earthquake of unprecedented magnitude riffing the Appenines' length, I expect/hope I can visit these places next time I'm in Italy, or the next. 

This is one of the beauties of living in Europe. These glorious, eternal, living, places are always tantalising, always accessible. And too, it's the elegant beauty of a continuous Interrail or Eurrail pass. With such a pass, you can do what you want - it's as flexible as a 95 year old yogi standing on her hands with her feet folded behind her neck. 
 
I've done a little plan-changing during this trip. I cancelled a purely voyeuristic trip to Taranto - in 2014 the third most polluted city in the world due to environmental and ethical industrial contamination - and Matera, a UNESCO World Heritage site https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matera. The bump-on effect meant leaving out a permaculture project in Salerno. Skipping Firenze. Also, sadly, due to differences in logistics/needs, I'm missing out Ecovillagio Torri Superiore, up near the border town of Ventimiglia. I can accept it. The next trip's itinerary appears to be mapped out.

But the worst is (due to an interview lined up in Menton with an economist acquaintance who has insight into the European rail industry), I don't get to get out in Liguria to feed my poetic self while ambling the Cinque Terre. Instead, trapped on board the train I can only write.

Poet and journalist hard at work  

I look out the windows and sigh. Oh! The rhapsodical Cinque Terre, or 'five lands'!  Oh! Il Golfo dei Poeti (gulf of the poets)! 200 years ago the poet Shelley drowned around here, and the poet Byron swam here.

Less famously, in the 2013-14 winter I lived nearby, in Varese Ligure, on a permaculture project. As a reward before leaving the area I bussed out to the coast, then caught a train to walk its stunning, alluring tracks up and down dizzying heights on one baking, early March day. I paid homage to wild, soaring geese, prostrated myself to violets, and swore on my heart to return. Once back in Berlin after this trip I may have to get out my oversize Golfo dei Poeti souvenir tea towel and saturate it in salty oceans of regretful tears.

 

So, as much as I long to get out when our Frecciabianca train reaches La Spezia - gateway to Il Golfo dei Poeti, and where to catch northbound local trains up the Cinque Terre - I do not get out. And although weather conditions are not ideal today - it's a bit cloudy, a bit spitty - I feel somewhat undone. It's a terrible tragedy not to tread those craggy paths, feeling spry, electric and unpredictable as a mountain goat. Woe! This is all I see today of la dolce vita of the entire eastern Mediterranean coast:

 

I exhort you to the heavens: do not do as I do, Do as I Say! Go to the Cinque Terre by train - it is far and away the best, most practical mode of transport to get there - and get out. Leave yourself behind. Steady the discombobulated body on the selected station platform of Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, or Monterosso al Mare. For example, imagine yourself standing here, looking at my yearning sadface on the train...

   
Once on the Cinque Terre footways take deep breaths. Count the outrageous number of vineyard terraces - my record was 53 on one steep hillside. Inhale the giddy scent of lemon blossom. Walk the rugged land. Swim in the sea. Write poetry. Pluck wild capers. 

 

 

Because exercise and intoxicating sea air work up an appetite, eat and drink, to the maximum, all the delicious regional delicacies available in each of the five villages. Do not risk the loss of reason suffered by moi, forced to drive-by the Cinque Terre, rushing ahead to Menton to sacrifice myself to journalism on the Côte d'Azur!  Although admittedly, this is waiting for me:

 

 

It could be worse.