The intrepid walkers

The weather has been just perfect. We all caught the train to Vernazza. Our plan was to look around a little then do the 2km walk to Monterossa. It’s another beautiful little town, though with more shops than Manarola.
Laureen only had an hour before she had to head back to Nice but she and I still managed to get our shoes off and dip our feet in the Ligurian Sea. It was VERY chilly water!
The rest of us figured an early lunch would be good before we started our walk. A delicious meal of fresh local seafood and salad sitting in the main piazza was just divine.

The walk was listed as taking min 2 hrs and it started with a very step flight of steps right from the piazza. After 10 mins we saw a sign that said the track was closed in 500m – at ‘the gate’. We figured we would just reach the gate and turn back.
We passed this funny little monorail style lift for carting their good up the hill. Notice the angle, seat and little trailer.
Vernazza getting smaller

Up and up and up we went. Endless flights of rock steps built into the steep hill, all varying heights and depths. We needed to stop several times for our palpitating hearts to settle enough to move on. There was no gate and we ran into a few people coming the other way who said they had got through ok. FYI – there have been landslides on a couple of paths completely blocking them but we figured we would be careful and keep going.

Our destination in the distance. After about an hour of non-stop climbing we gratefully reached a plateau. As we ambled happily along we notice a helicopter going back and forth in the distance. Picking up large loads of rocks (in white plastic bags) and dropping them down. Each trip back and forth was only 2-3 mins.
At many points the path got very narrow. At times no more than a 30cm. At other times 3 split logs about 10cm wide were tied loosely together with one piece of string, and placed to span where the path had completely fallen away. It was a little precarious to say the least to be on narrow crumbling paths. 40 more minutes of strolling/climbing/descending we realised the bags of rocks were being dropped near the path. As we got closer to the drop points the path was blocked with bags of rocks. We had no option but to squeeze between and half climb over them. There were several drop points along a section of about 300m of the path.

We needed to get through the point where they were dropping, we waited for a drop and rushed ahead as fast as possible to get out of their way. No such luck! The path was blocked completely with bags and the helicopter was coming!! The drop point was no more than 10-20 m from us and the down wind was very strong. Mark’s cap flew off and disappeared. I managed to grab mine as I ducked under Marks arm. We all huddled together waiting the 10 seconds for the chopper to drop and go. It seemed to take so long. I was frozen in place thinking it was a very long 10 seconds!
Steve said he was watching as the helicopter struggled to drop its cargo. He saw it shaking side to side/ up and down... finally after at least a minute it finally took off. It was very scary but exhilarating.
Then it was a mad dash to climb over the bags only to be blocked by another 5 bags. Kindly a couple of the workers helped us through, gripping our hand so we didn’t fall down the steep hill while we tried to get around the bags.
Once clear we were berating ourselves a little for ignoring the closed path signs, but also giggling from the experience.



The last 30 mins was all downhill and steps. It got to the point that my knees and legs were like jelly. I dont know if it was from exertion or latent shock setting in.

We enjoyed a well earned beer when we arrived in Monterossa before getting the train back home. An easy dinner of nibblies while watching the sunset and we were in bed asleep by 8pm, utterly exhausted!