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Italy’s Cinque Terre gateway
Call it luck, but in years of travel I’ve rarely experience an upended itinerary that didn’t have a silver lining, and my luck again held when heavy seas prevented our )RRWSDWKV FRQQHFW WKH ÂżYH YLOODJHV RI ship from docking at Portofino. the Cinque Terre The alternate port was a placed called Porto Venere, gateway to Italy’s Cinque Terre (“Five Landsâ€?) where five villages that hug cliffs along the Ligurian coastline are unreachable by auto and connected only by footpaths, trains and boats.  The sun isn’t long risen as the launch slices through the waves toward the village, which is just awakening from its slumber. Porto Venere is the imagined picture postcard against which all of my European visits are measured, and it easily exceeds expectations. The lower village is wrapped around a bay that was once the home port of the Byzantines’ western Mediterranean fleet. Here fisherman just returned with the morning’s catch are drying and mending their nets. Above them a women hangs laundry from a porch railing and suns herself as it dries. )LVKHUPDQ GU\ PHQG QHWV 3RUWR 9HQHUH ,WDO\ The single most striking landmark here is a church that sits on the promontory of a finger of land that reaches out to gather the bay. Its appeal is irresistible, and since much of the village clings to the steeply pitched hillside or is perched along its summit, the climb to the church the route winds through narrow, ageless village streets. The village may be ancient and its &KXUFK RI 6W 3HWHU 3RUWR 9HQHUH ,WDO\
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El Ojo del Lago / May 2014
buildings well worn, but everything here is infused with a tastefully simple Italian style that lends to it a casual elegance. Stone streets have been washed and swept squeaky clean, and bright flowers sit in window planters along the lanes. Locals and tourists alike browse local businesses, and the tantalizing aromas of cured meats and freshly baked breads and pastries drift out into the street. Through an open door a restaurant is polished and groomed in anticipation of lunch. At the summit I look down through the telescope of an alley entrance that caps a steep stone