Cinque Terre (1) - Riomaggiore

Riomaggiore

 First of the Cinque Terre towns from La Spezia, Riomaggiore (as with the rest) was cliffside town which for some reason had lots of boats, and even a dive site! Suffice to say that each town had a charm of its own, Riomaggiore for me was personally produce heaven. We saw tonnes of oversprouting tomato plants, prior to which bits of such vines were only seen packed into uniform plastic boxes in various supermarkets. The lemon trees heaving with beautiful golden fruit. All over the Cinque Terre we saw big sickly looking trees that bore bundles of green fruit. It was only in the walk to Corniglia that I finally deduced that these fig trees!

From the top of the cliff, we looked across the sea and saw the 4 other cliffs within which the other towns resided. Little grocers peppered the town centre (not quite the town centre as the village was built in a very narrow manner inland) and peddled their wares, fresh fruit, vegetables, pesto, pine nuts, fresh pasta, baskets of foccacia, oh i could go on. All of this wonderful ingredients presented themselves on a plate at Billy's in Manarola, a restaurant that i'd highly highly recommend if anyone is headed that way.