On one of our holidays a few years ago, we went to St Petersburg for 2 weeks and then Cinque Terre. I had completed my Certificate II in Russian and decided to really immerse myself in my language while we were in St Petersburg so organised one to one tutorials for 3 hours a day for one week straight with a tutor who spoke very little English. It was an amazing experience and really forced me to ‘think’ in Russian.
On the day we were due to leave for Italy, we got to the airport in St Petersburg (the old one!!! Imagine USSR utilitarian - no comfort and you may get close to ‘feeling what I felt’) (BTW The new airport which was finished about 2 years ago is great – very modern) and checked in. We waited and waited and waited……
After a 6 -8 hour delay we finally boarded and therefore arrived in Milan a lot later than we had planned. Despite being late, we decided to try and find a train to take us to Cinque Terre that night. The only way possible was to take one interstate train and then change to a local train. The local train was an experience for another blog, but it was worth it - as the train got closer to the coast, we could smell the sea air – it was intoxicating.
We arrived in Cinque Terre around midnight and met our hostess, who was a lovely Italian senora who didn’t speak much English. Obviously, my head was full of Russian and I was exhausted, but endeavoured to speak Italian to work out the details of where we were staying. It was really funny - every time I wanted to say ‘si’ I said “da”; non became niet…non capisco was не понимаю and I could only speak Russitalian - My sentence structure was Italian but the words were Russian. I couldn’t swap languages in my head!!!
The next day, after a good night’s sleep we looked out of our window and saw the beautiful sea and the unique Cinque Terre landscape and KNEW we were in Italy. The Italian came easier then…….
Cinque Terre is amazing. It means five lands and is a UNESCO world heritage site. It is in the region of Linguria and comprises 5 old seaside villages on the Italian coastline. In each of the 5 villages, colourful houses and ancient vineyards cling to steep terraces. The villages are called: Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore. We stayed in Riomaggiore which I think was the best, but we walked along the coastline one day to Monterrosso – pretty big walk…..but well worth the effort.
One of the attractions of Cinque Terre is that there are no cars allowed – there are no skyscrapers or corporate development. Paths, trains and boats connect the villages. The only requirement to being there is that you like walking and walking to your apartment becomes a fitness training session. It was a fabulous holiday……….
Jo
Jo
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