As you know we arrived safely in Monterosso
at the farm B&B. Our four
nights went very quickly (as time always does). Each morning the sky started out overcast but managed to
clear except for our last day when it rained and rained all day.
The Cinque Terre is a national park. Cinque meaning five. The five villages are: Monterosso,
Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola & Riomaggiore, in that order, visible
from our room.
The family’s farm is 32 acres. Living on the farm is Franco &
Silvana (the parents, in their seventies), Tommy (son 36yrs) & wife Elena,
and Francesca visits on the weekends with her husband and two young daughters
from Genoa. Franco bought the
first piece of land 40 years ago and has bought more over the years as it
became available. As you can see
by our photos the farm sits high on the hill overlooking
Monterosso Al Mare (village & beach).
To walk down to the village and beach it is
a 15-minute walk through the property but coming up is a different story. There are many hills but 2 really steep
sections and as you know I like walking so I'm not exaggerating. It was good exercise and needed with
all the food and wine (beer in Jim’s case) we have been devouring.
The family pride themselves on cooking with
their own produce grown on the property as much as they can and with seafood
that Tommy catches himself.
Picture the breakfast table: fresh fruit salad &
yoghurt, OJ, home grown tomatoes, hard boiled eggs, cheese, salami served with
bread & home made green chutney followed by homemade crostata served with
home made fig jam and marmalade, homemade biscuits served with Italian coffee. I know OMG!!!
Our first night out for dinner we ventured
down to the beachfront. Jim had
fresh grilled calamari and I had homemade spinach pasta with swordfish and
tomato.
The second night Silvana & Francesca made
a vegetarian dinner for us and the other guests (a family of 7 from Boston). They felt bad that Tommy wasn’t there
to cook. Tommy greeted us on
arrival, which was nice but then had to leave to go to Genoa (1.5hr drive)
where Elena and their new baby girl, she was three days old were still in
hospital. Silvana is a
vegetarian herself so the food was delicious. Pumpkin soup, pasta with tomato sauce, two different kinds
of vegetable flan served with beans cooked in tomato sauce with a cabbage salad
followed by a choice of dessert: fresh watermelon or lemon tart (light and
fluffy pastry) sprinkled with pine nuts.
The meal was finished with Limón cello made by Tommy & Elena.
Our third day in Monterosso we caught the
local train to the other ports.
The trip is only five minutes between each village. The ticket is great value at 4 Euros ($6) each for 6 hours in the one
direction. Many people walk
between one and more of the villages, (each village is 1.5 hours from the next)
have lunch then catch the train back.
We visited three ports then had lunch at Manarola. Jim had mussels with linguine & I
had walnut sauce with spinach & ricotta ravioli. The mussels & walnuts are specialties of the area. The homemade pasta was mouth watering. Lucky for those steep hills to and from
the farm.
Tommy arrived back at the farm late Tuesday
afternoon and offered to cook dinner.
On Tripadvisor the reviews rave about his talents as a fisherman and
cook so we were keen to have the seafood dinner. The plan for Jim’s birthday was to have one of Tommy’s
seafood dinners so we were lucky we got it in the end. The meal started with spaghetti and
eggplant with tomatoes – normally that would be dinner, wouldn’t it! Next the fish, it was cooked slowly in
the oven with lemon and drizzled with their homemade olive oil served with
Mediterranean vegetables - potatoes, red & green capsicum and
tomatoes. It was sensational. Dessert was vanilla pannacotta with
chocolate sauce. I can’t believe
Tommy made it all in a few hours.
Then he bought out an assortment of homemade grappa’s (blueberry, rose
petal, pomegranate & lemon).
We aren’t into liqueurs but we had one to toast to Tommy, Elena and the
new baby, Eirene ‘Goddess of Peace’ & people think happy is a hard name to
live up to.
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| The B&B |
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| The view from the B&B |
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| Jim having a rest along the walk back to the B&B from the beach |
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| What a pose! |
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