Cinque Terra: La Bella Italia

Dean’s folks paid us a visit over summer (about time and don’t leave it so long between drinks please parents), so we planned a trip to Italy with them for some flavour of the continent and some guaranteed sunshine and to trace Dean’s Mum’s family roots to the town of Calomini. Lou had always wanted to visit the Cinque Terre so that was our focus, but we also squeezed in a photo opportunity in Pisa; a night in Lucca; a trip to the tiny town of Caolmini; a quick visit to Verona, home of Romeo and Juliet; and a couple of nights in Venice. All up it was a fantastic week away, enjoying independent travel dominated by wonderful weather, fantastic food and wine, and not quite enough walking to cancel it out. Highlights follow.

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Following the obligatory photos at the leaning tower of Pisa we headed 30 minutes to the walled town of Lucca, our base for the night. We explored the town – which was pretty quiet on a Sunday – taking in the walls, numerous squares and passageways, St Martin’s Cathedral and the Basilica of San Frediano (along with the fascinating – and slightly weird – mummified body of St Zita, patron Saint of maids and servants, on display. Although she died in 1272, when her body was exhumed in1580 it was found to not have decomposed (proof of her Saintliness?) but has since been mummified). We enjoyed an excellent meal that night at Trattoria Da Leo washed down with local wine.

The next day was all about finding our roots. We were off to the tiny town of Calomini, high in the hills, to the hometown of Guiseppe Vangioni, Dean’s great great great great grandfather. Legend has it that Guiseppe fled Italy to Akaroa, New Zealand, in the 1860s after running into trouble with the Coppas when smuggling olive oil over the Italian mountains. The town was pretty quiet, but we paid a visit to the cemetery (lots of Vangionis) and admired the view.

 All (tiny, windy, back) roads lead to Calomini

From there it was off to our main base for the week, Vernazza in the Cinque Terre. We parked the car in La Spezia [top tip: we found it tough to find information about parking online beforehand, get there early and ask at the information centre for directions to the free car park a few blocks away.] Trains to the Cinque Terre are regular and only take around 30 minutes. Our base was A Ca’ Da Nonna, a great little apartment, and after dumping our bags we wandered the couple of minutes to the natural harbour and saw the sunset over foccacia, beer and gelato. Highlights from our few days there were the walk from Vernazza to Monterosso, and from Vernazza to Corniglia, exploring Riomaggiore and Manarola by train, daily swims in the harbour, dinner and breakfast at the Pirate Cafe (lovely staff and free wifi), and each day ending with sundowners on the balcony before exploring the variety of food options in town. Dean, Nik and Pete also enjoyed raw seafood at Puna Pescheria.

 We would definitely recommend Vernazza as a base, it was bigger than a couple of the other villages so had more food and accommodation options, and had the best swimming access apart from Monterosso which had beautiful sandy beaches but was so big it didn't have the topsy turvy village feel of Vernazza.

After four nights in Vernazza we hit the road again to Venice, with a pit stop in Verona, a spectacularly old Italian town where we walked the old streets to Casa de Guilieta for a photo at Juliet’s fictional balcony. 

We ended the holiday with two nights in Venice, doing all the obligatory tourist spots including the canals (by Vaporetto - water bus, we weren’t feeling flush enough for a gondola), St Mark’s cathedral, Rialto bridge, and a worthwhile tour of the Ducal Palace One of the unsung highlights was a trip to Burano (just beyond the more famous Murano) where all the buildings are painted glorious bright colours. Simply beautiful.