Vernazza

From Vernazza’s cemetery, the dearly departed enjoy the best views in town.

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I was in Vernazza last May, updating my Italy guidebook. At 10 p.m. one night, after a long day of research, I enjoyed wandering through this magical town, playing with my iPhone video camera. I never could have imagined that the street I was walking on would, just a few months later, be under 6 to 12 feet of mud and rocks. At the end of my stroll, Chef Claudio at Gambero Rosso joins me in marveling at how Vernazza is indeed “molto bella.” Then he says ciao and grazie…sending his best wishes to all the Americans who keep this town employed. As the rubble from last week’s heartbreaking disaster is being cleared away, we look forward to doing that again. Learn more at www.ricksteves.com/news.

If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.

While Vernazza is inundated with tourists in the middle of the day, by 10 p.m. it’s nearly a ghost town ‘ just a stray cat, the village wanderer, and the boys at the restaurant winding up a hard day of serving great food. Chef Claudio at Gambero Rosso sends his best wishes to all the Americans who keep this town employed.

If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.

I spent the day climbing all over Vernazza while looking for good B&B rooms. The going rate is €70, and places with a view or terrace charge €85. Some are good, others don’t make the cut. This place came with an incredible 360-degree view, but the rooms were too cramped, the layout was tortuous, and the price was just too high. Still, it was a fun visit.

If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.

The Cinque Terre ‘ a string of five remote and ramshackle port villages along Italy’s Riviera ‘ was once an undiscovered paradise. It’s still a paradise, but these days you can only call it “undiscovered” in a relative sense ‘ compared to, say, Venice. And I suppose it’s partly my fault. When I first described and recommended Italy’s Cinque Terre in the late 1970s, there was almost no tourism there. Now it seems to be on the list of almost every Italy-bound tourist.

Going from “sleepy” to “popular” changes a place, and every year we need to update our guidebook listings in the Cinque Terre. This is one gig my researchers don’t enjoy. They prefer leaving this region to me. Locals are too aggressive and scheme to get into the book. They orchestrate email campaigns to fake positive feedback. And, I assume, they create negative feedback about their competition.

When I drop someone’s listing from the book, they’re dark and brooding to me the next year. Others camp out at the station, asking me, “Why you don’t put me in your book?” One year, all the B&B owners wanted in. Then the notoriety of being in a guidebook became a red flag to the local tax police, and the next year those same B&B hosts ‘ or at least the tax cheats among them ‘ insisted on being taken out.

My friend Sergio, who seems to be more urbane and modern than most Cinque Terre locals, is my research “bodyguard” for my three-day visits. It’s when his cell phone rings like never before as people figure they must go through Sergio to get to me. He says, “Suddenly my enemies become my friends.” People hang out in front of a hotel I may be visiting, then when I exit, they just happen to be passing by. They say, “Buon giorno,” make their pitch, and give me a business card.

Troubled by reports from my readers that my recommended B&Bs were price gouging in busy times, I’ve struggled to impose some order. One year, I tried to establish the “Nuova Etica” (“New Ethic” in Italian). I would (with Sergio’s translating help) explain to B&B owners that they must charge no more than what’s listed in the book. I promised to encourage readers to report on any B&B host that gouged them. The owners would agree to my plan ‘ but this is Italy. The next season, all of their rates went up, and I really couldn’t drop them all. For my latest edition, I’ve reluctantly dropped the notion of a new ethic and just encourage travelers to shop around for the best deal on a room.

Things are changing here. The big trend in the Cinque Terre is elderly apartment owners moving into the big city for a more comfortable place to live out their golden years. They hire Eastern Europeans to manage their Italian Riviera apartments, renting to tourists who come in with each train. There’s a fascinating tourism metabolism here: The train brings locals their livelihood as reliably as the tides bring nourishment to barnacles.

On my first visit to my favorite Cinque Terre town, Vernazza, I couldn’t afford a good restaurant meal. But I met a gentle restaurateur named Lorenzo. I’ll never forget how he said, “Sit. You must be hungry. I’ll feed you.” I did. And he did. He died of cancer shortly after my visit. For 20 years, his daughter Monica has been my best connection with Vernazza. She has Lorenzo’s same love in her piercing eyes. And I’m happy to bring my tour groups to her family restaurant.

I wish I could say the Cinque Terre is a restful stop for me but, when here, I’m just too excited with the research challenge to relax. Still, it’s perfect as a break in an intense vacation. In fact, for two decades, the Cinque Terre was the “vacation from our vacation” on our Best of Europe in 21 Days tour. Like a seventh-inning stretch, our tours arrived here around day 14, just after we’d hit the biggies (Venice, Florence, Rome) and were in the mood for no museums. After our break on the Riviera, we’d be energized to do the Alps and finish with a climax in Paris.

While I rarely enjoy a free day in the Cinque Terre, I do savor a leisure hour at the end of an intense day of research here. My favorite time is at about 11 p.m. Like me, the local chefs have been scrambling all day. Now that the last guest has left, we’ve both finally finished our work day. They sit at a bar with tables for one facing the sea, and have a strong drink and a cigarette. I take a slow walk without agenda, camera, or notepad, just being in the Mediterranean town of my dreams. All of us are savoring the place we work hard to share with travelers…a place that we love season after season, as much as any of its countless guests.

I hope that, on your next trip, you can enjoy my favorite stretch of Mediterranean coastline (and get a fair deal on a room while you’re there).