Rain on the Riviera

Train from the airport to Monterosso

I never got to see the sun turn the pastel colors of the Riviera’s stucco houses to gold. Yesterday, on my day in the small village of Monterosso on Italy’s northwest coast, it rained all morning and afternoon, finally giving way to a humid and cloudy night.

Cliffs dropping into the ocean

Monterosso from way up on the trail

But despite the rain, I had a wonderful time traveling with my grandparents, who are in Europe for the week. Monterosso, the northernmost village in the Cinque Terre national park, is built on the bottom of huge cliffs that drop sharply into the Ligurian Sea. It is connected to the other four villages in the Cinque Terre, all built along the water, by a footpath that scales the cliffs and looks out on the clear sea below. After breakfast in the hotel, which was high above the village and built into the cliff, my grandmother and I set off for Vernazza, a village located on the other end of the longest and most remote stretch of the Cinque Terre paths. Along the way, we wound our way past thousands of terraces filled with grape vines used for making wine.

Train used for collecting grapes that winds around the mountain

Vernazza from the trail

A light rain during the hike kept us cool but not wet, but on arrival to Vernazza it started to downpour. We grabbed some real Italian pizza from a restaurant in the village and sat under my umbrella as tourists and villagers ran for cover from the rain. We then hopped a train to the southernmost village of Riomaggiore and walked along the short and well-paved trail to Manarola, even though it was downpouring. Of course, I enjoyed some gelato during my stay in the Cinque Terre! Ice cream in London is a rare treat, with a pint costing over ₤4 ($6) in every grocery store.
As I write, I am racing toward Rome on a train with compartments like the Hogwarts Express (They even came by with a food cart, but it wasn’t selling any Bertie Botts’ Every Flavor Beans). There, my grandparents and I will meet up with my uncle, who is teaching a study abroad class for the University of Washington. When I came to Italy five years ago on a family vacation one summer, I remember passing fields of sunflowers and seeing rows of vibrant yellow all pointed in the same direction to face the sun. The train just passed a field of dead sunflowers, all brown, all facing in different directions, many fallen over. Maybe Rome will have peanut butter. Grandma is upset because she can’t find any in Italy.