Life in Vernazza

Life in Vernazza
6/24/2010 Thursday
Travel is amazing! The people, the richness of the variety of Life! The town of Vernazza, Italy was so sweet - it has been here since medieval times and 600 people still live here. There was a very old church right on the water, built in the 1300's I think. My son, Nathan, and I were looking inside, and a man came inside and started setting stuff up on the altar, and he then came and sat down in the pews near us and he started chanting in Italian with Rosary beads in his hand, and then little old Italian ladies, one after the another, came into the church and joined him in call-and-response until there were about 20 ladies all around us, saying the Rosary call-and-response in Italian to this man. (Why only this one man who appeared to be a priest or a lay person, and all of these old women? Where were the other men of the village?)
On the next day in Vernazza (the first whole day there in the Cinque Terra), I got up early to see the sun rise and had coffee at the Blue Marlin cafe while the family slept in. Later in the day the family took the train to Monterosso (the 5th of five communities in the Cinque Terra), and we took a boat back after walking along the water front of this resort community on the Italian Rivera.
On the second whole day in the Cinque Terra, I didn’t sleep well again and got up at 2:30 am. I took a walk, took the 6:30 am train to Riomaggiore (the 1st of five communities in the Cinque Terra) by myself and was unsuccessful in finding any coffee. I returned to Vernazza on the 7:30 am train but the family was still asleep until 8 am. I took a nap until 9:30 am while the family had breakfast without me at the il Pirate restaurant, ran by twin brothers who were very entertaining, so Mary made reservations for dinner there that night. I rented Internet time (30 minutes for 3 Euros). Then the whole family took the train back to Riomaggiore for a nice lunch and a boat ride back to Vernazza. (The famous trails between towns were too steep for this tired family). On this boat ride some of us got too hot, dehydrated, and sea sick, so I took another 90 minute nap, then we swam in the Italian Rivera before dinner.
On our last full day in Vernazza, we heard the church bells sounding differently, and we went down to the village center and found all these local people gathering in front of the church, then they started walking behind a vehicle with something like "Social Services" (in Italian) on the side, with a casket inside the vehicle. The gathering procession followed the vehicle and casket up and out of the village.
That night, in the dark, I found the cemetery high up on the mountain above the village - very, very beautiful that brought me to tears. I could feel the life, the history, the people, the spirits there.
It's so beautiful.
Todd