Italia! (Italy!)

Hello family, friends and misdirected supply management watchdogs, and welcome back to another edition of the Swiss Cheese Report. Aaron here. Consistent with my personal commitment to remain at all times at least one generation behind the leading technology -- and since it seems that against all hope Twitter is indeed here to stay -- I've decided to post my first ever blog. Congratulations on being a part of this historic moment. Now, without further ado or self-promotion, in we go...

The subject of this particular dispatch is our first escape from Geneva and out into the European neighbourhood. The second weekend of September brought a marvellous little holiday called the Jeune Genevoise (in this case "jeune" should be translated not as "young"but rather as "fast", as in "not eating", but I don't know how to make the little hat over the 'u' so apologies to our francophone readers for any confusion). It should also be noted that I didn't actually participate in, observe or hear about any fasting, but there you go. In any event, the result of this throw-back to the 16th Century is a great little four-day weekend observed by precisely nobody except those living in the Canton of Geneva. And since nobody else is on holiday, you can actually get hotel reservations in popular spots like Italy for less than the cost of an aging Russian free agent (hello hockey fans!) . Which reminds me of what it is that I'm supposed to be writing about here. Free agency. Wait, no, Italy. Onwards!

Italian Houses: Narrow

On the Italian coast (or, more pretentiously, the Italian Riviera), nestled between the hustle and bustle of Genoa and the hustle and bustle of La Spezia, is a unique and charming region known as the Cinque Terre - literally "The Five Lands". This collection of five small villages (from north to south: Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore), clinging to the rugged, rocky hillsides overlooking the shimmering sea, was traditionally isolated, connected only to each other via a narrow and at times treacherous footpath.

Riomaggiore

This historic isolation is now a thing of the past, but, together with its UNESCO World Heritage designation, is heavily traded upon by the merchants and tourism authorities of the region to lure hordes of picture snapping tourists to the Cinque Terre, utterly spoiling the whole point. Actually, that is not true at all; as the official holiday season ends in August, we missed most of the crowds and, in fairness, the place would be pretty amazing even if crawling with people.

On good advice, we decided not to stay in Cinque Terre proper, instead opting for a beach front hotel in the beautiful little town of Lerici, just to the south. The idea being that we'd have good access to the more popular destinations without the cost or the crowds. While true, this drastically undersells Lerici's own charms -- it is by no means the poor sister of better known towns farther up the coast. Dating to the Etruscan period, Lerici is dominated by an imposing castle that guards the approaches to La Spezia.

Castles: obsolete

Lerici was once the preferred holidaying destination of dandy-boy Brit poets Byron and Shelley, whose affinity for Lerici lives on in the Gulf of La Spezia's nickname "the Gulf of Poets" and in the names of 92% of all businesses operating in town ("sorry, do I turn right at the Hotel Byron or the Byron Hotel...?"). Lerici has a very lovely waterfront promenade that winds for well over a kilometre past beaches, marinas and discount knock-off prada handbag salesmen, and is well-connected to the Cinque Terre by regular boat and train service (we also tried the bus so you won't have to).

Mom, Dad and Sam on the Promenade

We spent plenty of time in Lerici lounging on the beach immediately across the street from our hoteland feeling pretty smug about our relative odds of developing skin cancer.

Our Hotel Showing Aforementioned Beach Proximity

Anglos: pale

We also spent a day hiking along the footpath between the towns of Cinque Terre. "Rough seas" (these people have clearly never been to Newfoundland) meant that we had to take the boat to Monterosso al mare so, despite having been cautioned against it, we hiked the most challenging part of the trail to Vernazza.

Heavy Seas on the Boat to Monterosso al Mare

This would be a decent workout at the best of times, but it was made somewhat more challenging by the need to carry a two-year old 95% of the way due to the narrow path and generally terrifyingly dangerous cliffs. Fortunately, we were utterly unprepared for the degree of difficulty and so set off with a blissfully ignorant optimism.

Hiking the Cinque Terre Trail, Monterosso al Mare in Background

Sam was a trooper and even managed to fall asleep for a third of the hike. The change from wriggling and squirming to pure dead weight was a refreshing change of pace for Dad...

Sam, Wholly Engrossed in the Cinque Terre Experience

After a quick lunch and some sight seeing in Vernazza (arguably the cutest of the towns), we took the train to Riomaggiore and then walked back to Manarolla along the much more child friendly promenade.

Vernazza: Well Worth the Effort

We also spent lots of time enjoying the delicious italian food and wine on the many uncrowded terraces of Lerici, exploring the nearby town of Portovenere (it and Lerici are picturesque bookends to the bustling port of La Spezia), and stockpiling delicious local pesto sauce and monstrous blocks of parmesan cheese at prices that make a Canadian weep.

Portovenere

After an extremely relaxing and enjoyable interlude in Italy, the family set out for the six hour drive along the Livorno coast, past the medieval castles of Piedmont, into the foothills of the Alps, through the engineering triumph of the Mont Blanc tunnel, and finally through Valois and to the homey comfort of the auto repair shop where we landed when our car broke down on the autoroute 15km from Geneva. The details are best left for another blog written by my very apologetic wife, but suffice to say that "gazol" is not, in fact, a cute French synonym for "gasoline", but rather a horribly confusing French synonym for "diesel".

Fuel Pumps: Confusing

Well, thanks for joining us on this leg of the adventure and hope to hear from you soon. Tune in next week when we discover that "cheval" is not a cute Swiss word for steak...

A bientot!

Context free picture to make you jealous

P.S. - There was a carousel in Lerici.