As a first-stop on our quickie Italian weekend, Joe and I decided to hit-up Cinque Terre, Italy’s 5 hill-top/coastal towns. After seven hours of driving – the last of which entailed single-lane, winding, near head-on collision, take your breath and one of your nine lives away roads – we were looking forward to relaxing with some Italian wine and a great view of the Ligurian Sea.

This is what we found instead:

Ok, not a problem. We turned around and tried to find another route and hoped that the GPS would catch up with the new plan soon. After some more wandering, we found ourselves amidst a small group of cars, all of which were having a hard time determining what their next steps were going to be. I got on the phone with our hotel owner and tried to decipher, through an exceptionally thick Italian accent, what she suggested we do. To make comprehension matters worse, Joe started yelling in German out the driver’s window to some guy who saw our license plate and thought we knew what we were doing. Ha! What a debacle! I honestly have no idea what the lady on the phone told me to do. However, she was very clear about the fact that she was only going to stay until 7pm waiting for us.

We opted not to drive to Levanto, as the road block suggested, and instead made our own plan! So, after surviving another 30 minutes of driving on the “road”, parking 5 miles from the nearest town, and praying that the car would be there when we got back, we began our sweat-filled walk to the ferry.

See, here’s the thing: there were devastating flash floods in October of 2011, particularly in Vernazza (our destination) and Monterosso. We still have no idea if the road has remained closed since 2011 or if it’s impassable for some other reason. Regardless, there was absolutely no indication anywhere during my research process that there would be road blocks nearly two years later. What made me feel a bit better was that we were not alone in this perplexing situation.

So, we jumped on the ferry at the northwestern-most town of the Cinque Terre, Monterosso, and took it all the way to the southeastern end of Riomaggiore. It was actually a beautiful way to see all five of the towns from the sea.

Monterosso

Tiny Corniglia perched in the hills.

But, we still needed to get back to Vernazza…via train. A train that never came. So, while I was on the phone again with my favorite Italian hotel proprietor, trying to explain why we wouldn’t be there on time, Joe wandered around Riomaggiore and found the wine he had been looking forward to. Forget the beautiful sea panorama…tonight it was going to be a view of the train tracks! The train did eventually come…after we finished the entire bottle of wine.

In all honesty, it really wasn’t that big of a catastrophe. We actually got to experience three of the Cinque Terre towns, instead of the two we had originally planned. When life throws you curves, you learn to swerve. I’ve got a lot of fun memories from this swerve.