The Via dell' Amore-Chinque-Terre10 Oct 2011
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Doing the..
..20 minute? walk..
..in style..
| Monday 10th October 2011 Weather:-Still beautiful Afternoon Manarola has very old origins; the town is located on a sharp promontory of dark rock, it was founded by the inhabitants of the probably Roman settlement of Volastra and its name derives from the Latin "Manium arula", that means a small altar dedicated to the “Mani”, Roman gods of the house. Manarola is characterized by tower houses defending the village. A quick tour of the town was followed by us attempting the walk along the Via dell’ Amore, we had read that it was an easy walk but this had footpaths all the way along, it was almost level and to top it all of it had a little restaurant 30 metres in. It could not have been better as far as we were concerned (we are getting soft I know). The views wherever you look are spectacular as you can see on the photos but somewhere in the past there has sprung up an idea that if you and your love leave a lock attached to any of the safety netting, fencing or cabling along the path it will strengthen your love but some modern day idiot has started doing the same by tying plastic bags to anything that does not move so now you come across areas that are festooned by plastic shopping bags tied up. Our 20 minute walk took just over an hour (we sat down in the cafe’ of course) and we were delighted at the end of the walk to find a tunnel (decorated with different mosaic designs) that takes you into Riomaggiore. Riomaggiore dates back to the VIII century, when a group of Greek fugitives from the persecution of Leone III Isaurico found shelter there and the story of how it was built is shown on the two big tiled walls near the railway station depicting all the ancestors and their labours. Or next thought had been to do the next easiest walk and that is from Manorola to Corniglia but we had heard the walking path between those two places was closed so our thoughts were “if the ferry does not pull into Corniglia and one of the walking paths is closed, how is it faring?” These places rely heavily on tourism now. Our ferry timetable told us that we had a nearly 2 hour wait before the next one came, so on to the train we hopped; we had taken some beautiful photos in Corniglia last time we were here but I do not know if it was because we are later in the season or if smaller numbers of tourist have affected it but those beautiful nooks and crannies were not to be found this time. |
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