Bergamo was great and we were really looking forward to Cinque Terre.
Unfortunately, what we didn’t realize was — most of Western Europe had a three-day weekend and the UK had a whole week off and, you know what? They all descended on the highway between Bergamo and Cinque Terre.
We fly for twelve hours to get away from California and we’re still stuck on a fricking LA-like freeway at rush hour. What should have taken three hours took well over five. Needless to say, patience is not one of Ken’s strong suits so beers and food were in order quickly.
We took the bus to Portovenere, a close coastal town that seemed like a good place to go. The town would have been nice if everyone that was on that freeway hadn’t chosen Portovenere as their destination. Can anyone say EuroDisney?
This was the low point in Danny’s culinary Italy adventure when he ordered a seafood dish and it looked like they pulled some big-ass shrimp out of an aquarium, boiled them whole, threw a little curry on them and served them just after they stopped moving. It sucked for him having a gluten problem. Danny is definitely not squeamish about eating interesting things but that was the last straw. He was so hungry after trying to find something to eat on the scrawny things that he ordered a steak.
The best thing about Portovenere is the late 11th century church that is perched precariously on a cliff that looks like it could fall at any moment.
The next day we took a boat to Cinque Terre in the morning so we could do the hiking trail between the five towns that is roughly 12 kilometers long (and no, I’m not going to do the math for you…exercise your ability to use the internet and figure it out in miles if you don’t know the conversion). We started with the toughest two sections, figuring that would give us time to cool down on the other two sections. Holy crap…the first 7.5 kilometers between towns 1, 2 and 3 (Monterossa, Vernazza and Corniglia) should only be frequented by mountain goats. I think I saw a couple of Sherpas with their packs struggling on the trail.
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