Cinque Terre

Welcome to Italy! To catch y’all up … last Thursday we drove to Lausanne, dropped the rental car off (that we picked up in Hamburg a month ago), hauled 4 suitcases and 2 backpacks half a kilometre to the train station to wait for our train to Italy.

Being an Italian train, it of course arrived late and other than a short, bloodless run-in with the conductor guy over luggage, we had a pretty uneventful but pleasant (read: airconditioned) train ride. Once again no checking of passports at any stage.

Spent the night in Milan and picked up another hire car the next morning and drove to Monterosso al Mare on the Cinque Terre Coast. I was dreading driving in Italy (I still have nightmares about my last visit here and had recently read an article about the “phantom 3rd lane” etc). Fortunately, all pretty civilised so far – down south may be a different story though – watch this space.

Arrived in Monterosso hungry and in search of lunch at about 2pm only to have the heavens open up the minute the hotel shuttle dropped us in town. There was a huge storm complete with massive cracks of lightning and rumbles of thunder, the likes of which we last saw in Queensland when we were nearly flooded at home. Just like QLD, it was over within an hour or two.

The next day the sun was out, a lovely 27C with a cool breeze off the water and we caught a boat calling in at four of the five towns of the Cinque Terre. Water is beautiful and clear and the colourful buildings clinging to the cliffs are what has made this part of the world famous. Understandably so!!

Returning from our boat trip – we decided to go to the beach and have a swim in the gorgeous, inviting, blue water at Monterosso to cool off. I am aware from having visited Italy previously, that beaches are privately owned and you therefore have to pay to go to the beach. Fortunately you get two sun loungers, an umbrella, walkways and a loo for your money. All very civilised, so not a bad idea really.

HOWEVER, we were told that the beach was “full” when there were clearly plenty of empty loungers! No … apparently they are “reserved” (and some people only rock up later or perhaps not at all) and … fully booked for today (Saturday) and … the whole of Sunday too!

Turned out all the other 3 beaches were fully booked too. We decided to walk purposefully onto one of the beaches (as though we belonged) and Jarrah managed to get into the water but they were on to us and told us we weren’t allowed on the private beach but that there was a “free” beach at the end – yay!!! …. No – when we get to the free beach, the young man asks us “Have you got a reservation?” Er … No, we don’t …this is the free beach…isn’t it?? Yes! but you have to make a reservation and it’s full today. Starting to lose our sense of humour at this stage.

By this stage we’ve decided we’re getting on one of those f*cking beaches tomorrow come hell or high water. Get back to the hotel, ask the owner – what website do we go on to book a spot on the beach? She claims she has no idea … I’m beginning to smell a bloody conspiracy here!! Anyway, after some time, I manage to find where to book the “free” beach (but not the others) and there is ONE spot left for Sunday morning (when you book, you have a choice of 9 to 2pm or 2pm to 7pm … when it’s not all fully booked of course).

SO, armed with our confirmation email we head down to the “free” beach on Sunday. No-one checking at the entrance, so we walk onto the beach, choose a pair of loungers with an umbrella and a handy table for cocktails and my arse has no sooner hit the lounger and BB (Beach Bastard) appears from thin air and is standing over me telling me “You can’t sit here – it is fully booked”. Now … what I want to know is … WHY is BB SO bloody sure that I am not one of the precious few who HAS a reservation? (Again, this smacks of a conspiracy – for sure!). But being the reasonable person that I am, I shove my iPhone with my email confirmation in his face (with a smug look on mine), only for him to tell me “This is a private beach… the free beach is over …. there”.

Off we go (with everyone on their loungers staring like we’ve just crawled out the sewer), to find the free section has no loungers, no umbrellas, no lifeguard, just a timber pole showing individual spaces. Seeing as we are now sitting in the blazing hot sun, without any shade, I decide I better go buy sunblock, but you can only get off the beach via the f*cking PRIVATE BEACH and now I have BB (Beach Bitch) shouting something at me in Italian, when I give her my dumb look, she tells me “You can’t walk amongst the umbrellas, you have to walk along the shoreline and turn up only when you get to the walk way”. Riiiigghhhtt!!

There is a happy ending to this somewhat long-winded story … Jarrah was back from a swim in the sea and we were sitting on our patch of sharp pebbles (did I forget to mention that?), sharing a towel and I was sitting holding a small (rain) brolly over me (that I thankfully still had in the backpack) when a lovely man behind me called “Senora?” and asked me if I speak Italian, when I said I didn’t – he switched to English and asked me if we would like to borrow one of their beach umbrellas. There were about six of them in their group and they had three umbrellas between them. They then offered us some of the sweet bread they were eating and we got chatting – they are originally from the Philippines and currently living in Milan – one of them has been here for 20 years, the other only three years. We had a good time chatting and joking with them and when we were about to leave, they asked if they could take a picture with us. We exchanged FB accounts with a promise of a free umbrella (and beach) if they ever come to Australia. So … good things happen on the free beach – you can keep your bloody loungers BBs!!