Livorno-Cinque Terre

The Cinque Terre

Today we’ve arranged an outside private car tour to take us around the Cinque Terre area, one of the most picturesque Italian regions I’ve had the privilege to experience but also one of the most overvisited by tourists. You can easily see why. The series of 5 (not including Porto Venere) colorful quaint towns are fun and easy to travel back and forth to. We start here.

Our driver today is Nicola, owner of the driving company we used pre Covid when our driver was Diego.

Nicola picked us up at the port and as we drove, laid out a basic itinerary for us. The general plan was to see Porto Venere (945am) then ferry a few towns down to Vernazza (12 pm) and then mainly Monterosso at 130 pm since the last time we were there in 2007 we ran out of time and didn’t see much of Monterosso. We’ll get picked up at Monterosso at 330 by Nicola and drive back. He’s going to follow us by car as back up because of the imminent transportation strike that’s going on in the city.

First we will drive up to La Spezia, the transportation hub of the area where we will plan out our attack. Pull over and check traffic and ocean conditions. Nicola knows the area and how to best get around so we’ll tell him where we want to go to and he’ll do the rest, a combination of boat, foot and car. Here’s how it went –>

Porto Venere

This places warms my heart each time I visit in person. June and I got married here 15 years ago, and it still feels wonderful to round the turn when you drive in and be greeted by the Grand Hotel Portovenere, the pink and yellow hotel overlooking the water.

…the arches and narrow pathways leading throughout the town…

This is the 3rd time visiting Porto Venere and this wine merchant is still here. I went in to have a quick chat and pick up a few tiny bottles of grappa. He remembered us from when we got married! #lifeisbeautiful

Here’s the castle the we were married at! Once built to guard against pirates, now the only pillaging is of the feels.

..The waters we swam in after the ceremony. Here’s where my obsession with ‘opihi around the world began with a butter knife from the Grand Hotel Porto Venere. I think we gave it back. We gave it back, didn’t we?

Here’s our flower girl all grown up. She’s doing a separate tour via cruise ship and we just happened to meet up.

After getting a few knickknacks, we got gelato (and saw a cat) and headed down to the ferry to Vernazza.

Gelato prices are one mark of how I judge an area. 2.50€ is pretty standard.

Foccaciaria. It’s fun to say. I got the pesto one.

While there I had the urge to taste the salt water.

We hopped the ferry and did a quick stop in Riomaggiore…

And got off at…

Vernazza

Since we only had an hour at each place we had to practice “hurry up and relax” so we grabbed a cup of seafoods…

…plus gelato and affogato (2 scoops gelato with a shot of espresso and cream on top). Massive!

We boarded the ferry to Monterosso, the last and largest town split into an old town and new town connected by a tunnel. When we got married a decade and a half ago, we visited the Cinque Terre towns but since this was at the end geographically, we didn’t get to spend a lot of time here and thought we’d never see it again…until now.

Monterosso

The first thing we did here was throw on trunks and jump into the water. The waters are clear and dark. Not too cold. I think the salt content is higher here because I had an easy time floating. It could also be all the cruise food! Chee hoo!

The pastels are amazing.

We stopped into a place called The Little Devil for trofie and pesto, mussels and more fried seafood. The kids liked! (Personally I like the trofie back in Porto Venere better, but I could be biased.)

This is a statue of Garibaldi, the man who united Italy into a single country in the 1800s.

Foosball! Can we get married here next time? Joke, joke. Some last minute foosball action before taking the tunnel over to the new side to get picked up by Nicola.

Nicola was there waiting exactly as planned at 330, with cold drinks no less!

Cheers! I’m assuming this is ok to do. Lol. I nursed it on the 1 hour ride back so I wouldn’t have to pee on the side of the road.

Parmesan cheese and other random bits of info

According to my local driver, the most well-known product of this area, perhaps in all of Italy, is parmigiano cheese. There are two types parmesan-grana padano (lower fat and different milk) and the more recognized parmigiano reggiano. The parmesan is made in 4 cities in Italy and can be purchased in different ages-12 months, 18 or 24 months, 20€ per kilo locally or 15€ at the factory. The production is highly regulated and each wheel is stamped with an identifying number. Our driver Nicola is very enthusiastic about parmesan. Besides that, the other regional specialties are wine, olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Average earnings

The average salary in Italy is 1200€ per month. A good retirement salary is 3000€. Unemployment is around €800! What can you read into this?

Should you do a private tour? I’m glad we did.

It’s difficult to decide which route to go when doing shore excursions. In this case we specifically knew we wanted to see certain things in this area. Hiring Nicola as a driver was a great decision, and since we used this company in the past, we knew we would be taken care of.

Interaction. Being able to ask one on one questions really is nice. Especially when I have lots of random ones that I’d normally be too shame to ask in front of a group of 30.

Itinerary. Having an itinerary planned out by a local is so valuable. At one point Nicola looked over at me and said, “If you trust me, this is what I have planned.” Heck yeah.

Would absolutely recommend using this particular small family company again.

https://www.nicolascovenna.com/

And we continue on to…

Rome!