-- Days one to four of the ‘Walk like an Italian’ tour. --
Should I try prosciutto or parmigiano, insalata caprese or tortellini ai funghi, limoncello or nocino? Such are the constant decisions faced when walking like an Italian, with an Italian, following trails that pass as many enotecas (wine bars), trattorias and ristorantes as marble mountains, medieval cities, fishing villages, chestnut forests, olive groves and terraced vineyards.
Tamarillo Expedition’s ten day “Walk Like an Italian” tour is deliberately named. No self-respecting Italian would walk far without pausing for an espresso, or vino, or local specialty dish, says our guide Marina Mantovani, her hands waving in constant motion as she speaks. And so, walk like Italians is what we do, through five distinctive Italian regions.
Marina's helpful influence began long before I even left New Zealand, with her Milan and Bologna hotel recommendations and train timetable advice ensuring I arrived safely and punctually at our designated meeting place, the Bologna Railway Station.
It appealed to her fellow guide Anthony’s quirky sense of humour that the first thing we did on this ‘walking tour’ was hire bikes. Our first stop, the elegant city of Parma, was apparently very bike-friendly and if we were to experience the local culture, then getting on two wheels with the locals in the paved streets and piazzas was the way to go.
The resulting exploration of Parma’s compact centro storico (historic centre) was a fitting ice breaker for our group, five Kiwi travellers and one young Danish lady. Anthony handed out detailed trip notes, complete with his own hand-drawn maps and a list of the city’s best features. We set off on a self-guided cycle tour of the Romanesque cathedral and baptistry, Piazza della Pace (Peace Square), palazzi (palaces), public gardens, hidden alleyways and historic archways of Parma. We saw few other tourists, just elegantly dressed locals and us, conspicuous on our bright yellow rental bikes.
The ice-breaking continued over lunch. This being Italy, critical details also on the trip notes were the culinary specialties of each region we were to visit. Parma is of course famous for its prosciutto di Parma (ham) and parmigiano reggiano (cheese). Lambrusco, a light, sparkling red wine, is the favoured beverage.
Marina ushered us through a small deli, past massive hanging hams and stacked cheeses, into a buzzing back room that we learned was the popular local restaurant Le Sorelle Picchi, run by three sisters. We would never have found it by ourselves.
Yes, this was a walking tour, and Anthony promised that long lunches would not be the norm but our first day together was an excusable exception. As our food arrived one of the three sisters explained the dishes and Marina translated. It was a culinary classroom. Plates laden with thinly sliced hams and soft salamis derived from every part of the pig, it seemed, preceded plates laden with parmigiano, then with tortellini stuffed with pumpkin and spinach ricotta, and much more that I simply can’t recall.
Two businessmen lunching beside us chatted with Marina. They were financiers from Milan, she said, noting that when the world is in economic crisis American financiers have breakdowns, while in Italy they go out to lunch.
Our several courses were washed down with the local lambrusco, after which we navigated our bikes with much hilarity and perhaps a mild element of risk through the narrow alleys to our hotel. Fortunately it wasn’t far; fortunately also there was a challenging walk planned next day, to restore our equilibrium.
Before we left Parma, Marina invited us to visit Camera di San Paolo (St Paul’s Chamber) to view a fresco by Correggio, one of Parma’s most famous artists. In another life, Marina has trained as an art historian. She is also aware that spending hours in art galleries is not to everyone’s preference.
“If there is one artwork to see in Parma it is this one, and we only need five minutes and I can explain it to you if you wish.” She was true to her word, and by 9.30am we had been artfully impressed and were on the road to the Ligurian coast, and the fishing villages, terraced vineyards and olive groves that tumble down the steep hillsides of Cinque Terre.
Lunch on day two was a more modest affair, a fresh salad caprese (mozzarella, vine-ripened tomatoes and basil leaves) in World Heritage town Portovenere. A medieval fort and church dominated the skyline, pastel-coloured houses jammed the shoreline and fishermen sold their morning catch from old boats that jostled beside luxury yachts.
This was the gateway to Cinque Terre, and it’s where we began the serious walking of the tour.
Five hour’s wander along a coastal ridge, enjoying views across the Ligurian Sea, fragrances of wild herbs, two café stops and one magnificent sunset, brought us to Riomaggiore, the first of the five villages of Cinque Terre. Marina walked with us, while Anthony and the luggage-filled van headed for our hotel, though staying within cell phone reach should anyone feel the need for a shorter walk.
Tourist Mecca Cinque Terre is hardly the remote region favoured by Anthony and Marina, but really it’s just too special to miss. To compromise, they accommodated us in a quaint hotel in middle village Corniglia, which sits high on a cliff top and is thus bypassed by the hordes that flock to the other, bigger villages.
The hotel is also where the local mafia eats, whispered Marina and I wasn’t sure if she was joking, as we settled among colourful looking characters in the busy ristorante.
Our trip notes listed vermentino (white wine), focaccia (bread), pesto with gnocchi and seafood as prime Cinque Terre fare. Sure enough this was what the menu featured; ravioli with octopus, pasta with clams, risotto di pesce (fish), grilled swordfish and fresh anchovies, netted each night by Cinque Terre fishermen who haul their boats by day high up to the narrow village streets because there is little safe mooring along this coast.
For centuries, the economy of the steep, rocky Cinque Terre relied on fishing and terraced vineyards and olive groves, with ancient paved pathways the only means of travelling from village to village. Tourist interest in the 1920s saw the building of a coastal railway. More recently a road was carved higher up the hillsides and car parks built on the village outskirts.
It was harvest time when we visited, and as we walked the popular Cinque Terre trail from village to village we watched the handpicking harvesters, and the tiny, diesel-driven funiculars that carried grape-laden bins up the steep terraced hillsides.
It was a different world, down in the villages, where hordes of gelato-licking tourists, delivered by ferries from Portovenere, poured into the souvenir shops and cafes. We joined them briefly in Vernazza, for espresso. As the day wore on the trail also became crowded – and very narrow in parts– leading to some interesting encounters as different nationalities, ages and sizes manoeuvred past in opposite directions.
Anthony met us at Monterosso, the fifth village, and led us through hidden back alleys o the Enoteca Internazionale, the oldest wine shop in the Cinque Terre, for a lunch of salad, focaccia and a refreshing little vermentino.
We took the easy way home, joining the ferry-travelling tourists back along the coast to village number one, Riomaggiore, wandered the gentle coastal “Lover’s Walk”, through Manarola village with its narrow paved, boat-lined streets, then climbed up the cliff and away from the crowds to our own, Corniglia.
(To be continued – see part two.)
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