Cinque Terre Day 3 (5/8/08)

The day before, mom had asked if we could possible come and watch the owners of the pastry shop make pastries. They were very accommodating and told us we could if we wanted to get up that early. We had to be there at 6:30am which really wasn't too bad. Kristen and Kim had to catch one of the trains to get to our town and they couldn't be there until a little after 6:30. Mom and I arrived (Mrs. Sitler decided to sleep in) and went back into the kitchen. I was shocked to find it was tiny. They had one little oven smaller than most kitchen ovens people have in their home. The counter was maybe 2 1/2 x 5 feet. Only Gianlucca was cooking that morning and I watched him for only a moment before he told me to try it. Suddenly I found myself making pastry after pastry right alongside him. He kept telling me how fabulous a job I was doing (although I think he was just partly being polite). I was amazed that he could actually make that many pastries each morning in such a small space. Kristen and Kim arrived and so there were now 5 people all crammed in a tiny kitchen. Massimo made us cappuccinos and everyone watched while Gianlucca and I made about 15 different types of pastries for a total over 100. We then moved on the bruschetta. The bruschetta is the best I have ever tasted in my whole entire life. (Now I just hope that when I come home I duplicate it somewhat similarly). That has probably been the most memorable part of my trip thus far. I had no idea that I would actually be able to cook with him and the most I was expecting was to get to watch him. The brothers were so nice and very animated. Not only did they do pastries, but they also made marzipan (an almond paste shaped and then hand painted). Shapes such as shrimp, starfish, strawberries, apricots, tomatoes, and mussels. The mussels looked extremely real. Gianlucca had done the marzipan the day before so I missed that which was a little disappointing, but he said if I came in the afternoon he would show me how to make a few. We enjoyed pastries and coffee for breakfast and before we went back to our hotel room, made reservations to eat dinner there that night. Apparently they get really busy at night so people have to make reservations. Later that morning Mom, Kristen, Kim, and I took a hike from Riamaggiore to Vernazza. It was about 3 1/2 hours and the views were absolutely amazing. Hiking to the last two towns were the most difficult and one part we had to walk up 382 steps. (I think that Europeans must be big on large numbers of stairs because they have them in huge groups everywhere.) The views were well worth the hike though. We arrived back in Vernazza and had some glorious Foccocia bread with pesto. The pesto there was amazing because most of the ingredients were so fresh. We then enjoyed some gelato. Kristen and Kim went back to their apartment and Mom and I went back to our room. Mrs. Sitler had apparently gone to the next town above us to see what was there. We went back to the pastry shop to see the making of the marzipan. Well I suppose that perhaps I have a natural talent for making pastries, but such was not the case when it came to marzipan. Gianlucca was making shapes as if it was the most natural thing in the world while I fumbled around. Mine tended to look more like shapes a kindergartner would make. They had a few molds, so I decided to stick with using those, although even that was not the easiest. Mrs. Sitler returned to tell us that she had the most glorious time in the other town. I guess there was a nice beach so Kristen and Kim came back to Vernazza and we all went there to FINALLY enjoy the water. This was the first time I got to go swimming on our whole trip so that was quite exciting. The water was a little chilly at first, but it didn't take long to get used to it. We swam out to a huge rock out in the water and climbed up it. The only bummer about the beach is that it didn't have much sand, mostly gravel sized rocks. Not quite the same on bare feet. Once we dried off we ended up covered in a white powder which proved to be salt. By the time we finally got back we had no time to take a shower before dinner so we had to clean up the best we could for dinner. Massimo and Gianlucca had given Kristen, Kim and I shirts with the patisserie name and told us to wear them that night so we could take a picture with them. Dinner was fabulous (I don't know what else could be expected from them) and of course we had to get more dessert and hot chocolate. We all posed for a picture and said our sad goodbyes as we were leaving early the next morning. They were both so sad that we were leaving and gave us a bottle of the best wine they had in the entire restaurant as a token of their affection. It was so sweet of them especially as I am sure that wine cost a pretty penny. We decided to get to bed as early as possible after that because we knew we had quite an early start the next day. I don't exactly remember when we found out about the train strike, but it was some time that even. Apparently there was going to be an organized train strike the following day from 9am to 1pm. Just what we needed as that was our day of traveling. We debated what to do and asked a few locals what they thought. Several of them said that the strike would actually go until 5pm and we would most likely be stuck in a train station if we made any distance at all. After much debate, we decided to try and get as close as we could to Venice and hope to not get stuck in a train station all day. That meant that we had to get up even early than originally planned so we could get more of a head start. One of the girls we had talked to said that not much can be done when train strikes happen so people don't even go to work or to school those days. Things were not looking super bright for the future, but we decided to see if we could make any distance at all. We bid Kristen and Kim goodnight at the train station and made our way back. Of course we dreaded the 100 stairs back up to our room, but managed to make it to the top without passing out from exhaustion. It was well after midnight, probably around 1:30am before we finally made it to bed (so much for our idea of getting to bed early) and set our alarms for 5:30am, dreading that wretched sound come morning.