Cinque Terre

Nowhere is the Italian enthuasiam and zest for life more evident than on the train.

"Ayy, welcome aboard this-a service to Milano!" says the conductor cheerfully. "Very soon a refreshment-a cart will be coming around, where-a you may purchase the snacks, the cold-a drinks and the sandwiches. Please, enjoy-a your journey!". And you can tell he means this.

Compare this to your average station announcer in Britain, who invariably sounds as if his wife has just left him and taken the family dog too.

"Alright... the next train on Platform 3 is the, errrr, the 11.23am to Brighton.... stopping at, uh, Clapham Junction..... Croydon..... Gatwick Airport..... and, oh God, all stations to Brighton. Please mind the gap between the train and the.... Christ, why doesn't someone just kill me now. Please?"

If you've ever made the mistake of asking a Sydneysider about the Bondi-to-Bronte walk, chances are you're still hearing about it to this day. Not without good reason, though: the walk - which links two of Sydney's most popular beaches - does take in myriad stunning ocean views, breathtaking clifftop vistas, and a nudist beach. I've been promised that as far as ocean walks go, the Cinque Terre ("Five Towns") comfortably puts its Australian counterpart to shame. A 9 kilometre stretch of coastline on the Tyrrhenian Sea, it was elevated to a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997.

We change trains at La Spezia and make the brief journey to Riomaggiore station, at the southernmost of the five towns. Stepping off the train, we follow the path around a bend, wait for the tourist crowd to clear off and when it does, we are treated to a majestic sight. Clinging to an almost vertical cliff face above the sea is the town of Riomaggiore, its mudstone houses seemingly defying gravity as they hang on to the land for grim life. At the bottom of the town, an impossibly blue sea pounds against the black rocks, sending misty spray high into the air.

Riomaggiore has one main "street" (it is inaccessible by car), leading up a steep hill from the bottom to the top of the town. Off this street run steep, twisting alleyways that lead to unseen houses further up the escarpment. Tanned old Italian women, whose families have probably lived in the area for generations, are hanging their washing out and gossiping with neighbours on opposite balconies. You get the impression that this scene hasn't changed much in centuries, except for the Americans lumbering up the main street slurping at gelatos, and the cafés peddling cheap tourist fare, such as the delicious slice of pizza I'm eating now.

One has the option of travelling between the five towns by train, boat, horse, bus or on foot. Taking the latter option is the only way to fully appreciate the beauty of the landscape and the towns, and by some happy coincidence is also the cheapest. As I have now discovered to be a worldwide phenomenon, as soon as you travel more than a hundred yards from the nearest form of public transport, the tourists magically disappear and you have the entire place to yourself. And whereas on the Bondi-Bronte walk you might find yourself frequently gasping at the price of a cold drink at a wanky café, the only sharp intakes of breath here are in awe of the spectacular ocean setting that gets more and more impressive with every bend we round.

We stop for a picnic lunch and swim at a sheltered cove between the towns of Manarola and Corniglia. The water, with its stunning pure blue hue, beckons us to get amongst and we keenly oblige. It's warm but intensely refreshing, calm and so pure that I can clearly see the floor a good ten feet below me. It's my first swim since slopping about in the North Sea muck at Zandvoort a week ago and it could not be a more contrasting experience. I could easily be fooled into believe I was swimming at any number of secluded Coromandel beachs right now, if it weren't for the multitude of fetching young Italian lasses sunning themselves on the rocks aboe me.

Apart from a steep final approach to the third town of Corniglia that can be negotiated with a quick bus ride, the path between the first three towns is relatively flat and unchallenging. This changes as we leave Corniglia in the direction of Vernazza and the final town of Monterosso. Ellen decides she can't be bothered and goes ahead on the train, leaving Michael and I to wander off up a steep mountain path devoid of tourists, locals and shade.

"Before we came, I read a review of the Cinque Terre walk from some old Kiwi guy", says Michael. "He sounded like a softcock eh. He reckoned the whole walk couldn't be done in one day, and this stretch couldn't be done without hiking boots".

I look down at my jandals which, truth be told, are proving woefully inadequate for the conditions. As if it wasn't bad enough that the word "Italia" superimposed on a tricolour Italian flag began flaking off pretty much the moment I put them on (it might as well have been drawn on in pastel), now the toe strap is beginning to come loose, occasioning some severe and unpleasant blistering. I've got half a mind to go back to that bastard street vendor in Florence and demand my 2.90 Euro back.

The path winds on up the hill until I'm well out of water, blistered and hot and bothered. It's worth it for the view though. Several hundred metres above the water now, we gaze out on an endless blue sea dotted with yachts and pleasure cruisers. People are bathing on a beach far below. Above us on the hillside, a church steeple soars toward the heavens, as I believe was its intended purpose when built all those hundreds of years ago. Then the path begins to descend rapidly into Vernazza, a fortified town that swarms over a small headland. Without much warning, we plunge from dense bush above the town into a series of random unsignposted alleyways and suddenly plop out onto the main street and back into a world of tourism and gelatos.

Exhausted, we decide to cheat and take the train to the final town of Monterosso. There we park up at a seaside bar with beers, wines and sangria, and enjoy the view of the gently curving coastline towards the south. From here we can see all three towns we passed through as well as our starting point at Riomaggior, far in the distance, still clinging to its precarious perch. Inside the bar a television is blaring with Olympic coverage of some ridiculous "sport", possibly fencing. The Italian commentator is going absolutely off his tits which means an Italian has just won gold, or maybe he's come last; it's just impossible to know with this Italian enthusiasm for everything. Other than that, all that can be heard is the contented buzz of satisfied beachgoers enjoying the last of the glorious early evening sunshine.

Somehow the Cinque Terre has managed to stave off the insidious threat of rich yuppies buying up all the real estate and turning it into another Riviera hotspot for the rich and pretentious. Perhaps it is the remoteness of the location and the inaccessibility to cars - let alone humvees - that keeps them away. Whatever the reason, it's most gratifying to look up and see locals standing at their windows chatting with locals and savouring the view, rather than rich Americans in boat shoes on glass balconies, sipping champagne and talking casually about their holiday plans in St Moritz.

Back at the station at La Spezia, we hop on a southbound train and settle in for the 90-minute journey back to Pisa. I can't help but notice a look of consternation in Ellen's eyes as she scans the departure screen outside the window.
"Guys, I don't think this is our train".
"What do you mean it's not our train?"
"Guys, I don't think this is our train", she repeats.
Suddenly Michael stands up and looks around nervously. "This train has assigned seating. We shouldn't be on a train with assigned seating".
"What do you mean it's not our train?", I repeat haplessly.
"Fuck Michael!", says Ellen, suddenly anxious. "Go ask someone on the platform if this is going to Livorno!"
"What do I say to them?"
"You say, 'per Livorno'?"
"Purrr Livorno", Michael repeats in a distinctly New Zealand brogue.
"No! 'Perrr Livorno'!"
"Purrr Livorno?", he tries again.
"Fuck, get out of the way!". Ellen runs to the door of the train. From my position in the booth I hear her ask someone on the platform, "Perrrr Livorno?"
"Non", comes the faint reply. My Italian is pretty poor, but even I know what that means. That means no!

The train door automatically shuts, indicating that its departure is imminent, with us on it. Ellen hits the open door switch and jumps off, pleading with us to do the same before we find ourselves heading in different directions at a rate of knots.

What follows is all a bit of a blur. Instinctively I jump up, put my book away, grab all three of our bags and make for the exit door. Michael, remembering his bag is still on the train, runs back towards the booth and slams into me. Stunned but alert, we both turn and run for our lives for the exit door. The train is already moving at a decent clip when we leap off onto the platform, bags and all, to the immense pleasure and tut-tutting of the locals. Ten minutes later, and we're on the right train.

The rest of the evening passes without incident, except that we get back to the train station at Pisa twelve hours after departing to find that our bikes that we tied up have not been stolen. Which just goes to show that even the thieves are in a friendly mood on a Sunday in Italy.