Italyriviera Real Estate

Getting There: The Cinque Terre region is approximately 150 miles south of Milan and 250 miles north of Rome. Depending on the U.S. departure city, flights are available to both cities on Alitalia, British Airways, Delta, KLM, Lufthansa, SAS, and TWA. Milan is also served by American, Continental, Swiss Air and United Airlines. Milan has two airports accessed through U.S. flights (MPX and LIN). The 1-800 phone numbers and Web links for these airlines are available at this magazine’s Airline page.

 

Train travel to the Cinque Terre region is recommended for its convenience. It is an arduous voyage by car, with no available parking in most of the villages. Similarly, the 50 mile trip north from the Cinque Terre to Santa Margherita/Portofino is easy and inexpensive via train.

If you are traveling elsewhere in Italy and/or Europe by train, you may want to consider a Eurail pass or an Italy-only regional train pass. These are availabe from Europe Through the Back Door, Inc., (206) 771-8303 and Europe by Eurail.

Staying There: Although the Cinque Terre region is still relatively unkown in relation to other sections of the Italian Riviera, it is popular with Italians. This fact, coupled with the small size of the villages, means that it is a good idea to have reservations at lodging establishments in the summer. Avoid weekends in August.

Our stay at Pension Sorisso’s, the only hotel in Vernazza, was very pleasant with good meals. The hotel is close (but not too close) to the train stop and only a few hundred feet from the harbor (Phone: 812224). Sorisso’s is a full-pension hotel, requiring that you have breakfast and dinner there. But the food is good and the price is reasonable.

A variety of lodging accommodations and eating establishments for the five Cinque Terre villages are described in detail in Rick Steves’ Italy. This and other good references for Italian travel, such as Fodor’s Italy, are also available via the amazon.com link below.

Accommodations in Portofino are limited to expensive three and four-star hotels in the hills above the harbor. There is a greater variety of lodging in Santa Margherita, and the access to Portofino during the day is convenient. Additionally, Santa Margartita has a much broader base of restaurants. Rick Steve’s Italy also suggests lodging in Santa Margherita.

Fast Facts:

Italy’s Cinque Terre region consists of five beautiful coastline villages along a 10-mile stretch just north of La Spezia. The main occupations of the villagers revolve around their vineyards and fishing, The population of each town is less than 1,000, except for Monterossa with 2,000 inhabitants. The train provides access between the villages at approximately 2 hour intervals. Hiking trails also connect the villages. Auto routes are very arduous.

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For a long while we have been considering a recipe which truly represents the cuisine of the Liguria Ponente, a recipe which satisfies two indelible characteristics: the sparseness of the raw materials and ‘the inspiration which transforms such a limitation into something wonderfully unique’. It then follows that the preparation is easy and straightforward and based on ingredients readily available anywhere. The choice, and we think somewhat provocatively, is “Pan e pumata” also known as “Bistecca sanremasca” or “Sanremo Steak”. The preparation of this dish has always been popular and widespread, even during the leanest of years.

People may ask what can be so satisfying about placing tomatoes between two pieces of bread, but it is this humble honesty that makes the final result so marvellous.

The “Pan e pumata” is decidedly west Ligurian, although its value didn’t escape the attention of people such as Domenico Scarlatti, the great musician.

Originally from Naples, an indulger of good food and wine, he turned up in many of the courts of Italy, Spain and Portugal and didn’t hesitate to mention the Neopolitan “pagnottelle”, which is also filled with tomatoes.

ingredients

32 tomatoes, bread, garlic, olive oil, basil, sea salt.

making it

For two people, take a large flat rustic loaf of bread, such as those which preserve well, and cut it horizontally in two.

In the same way, horizontally cut a pair of ripe sweet summer tomatoes.

Bathe the two bread halves in a little extra virgin olive oil and fry them with a touch of garlic.

Next, take the tomato halves and squash them with your fingers over the soft part of one of the pieces of bread, in such a way as the tomato breaks up into large pieces and sheds some of its water.

Sprinkle a pinch of large salt granules over the bread together with a little more oil and a fresh young basil leaf.

The large salt grains will melt a little, and the sour taste forms a pleasant contrast with the sweet tomatoes.

Place the other bread half on top and press down lightly.

Cut into two and eat immediately

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The cuisine of the Ponente Ligure is green, fragrant, with simple ingredients cleverly mixed together. But it is also a very light cuisine, almost vegetarian with flavors very closely tied to olives. Some dishes, such as “cappon magro” are the best expression of the mixture of products deriving from the earth and the sea. The Ligurian cooking has taken its peculiarity from other influences such as those from the Middle East, Spain and North Africa, having passed long periods of contact and exchange. We find a wide use of vegetables and herbs used in preparation of fillings for pastry covered dishes, stuffed veal, soups, and the magnificent “pesto” (basil sauce). A wide use of “white” meats is customary: chicken, rabbit, or pasture meats such as goat, lamb, not to forget wild boar and snails. Pine nuts, walnuts, olives, and mushrooms appear often, as also fritters, bread foccacce, and pizzas are widely eaten. Blue fish prevails: sardines and anchovies and sea bass, salt cod, stockfish. In the pastas, ravioli are placed on top of the list followed by pansoti (pasta filled with herbs and greens), trofie, trenette, gnocchi.

The oven cooked flat cheese garnished “focaccia” bread of Recco is a marriage of ancient and simple flavours, the intense and fresh fragrance of soft “stracchino” cheese spread overa thin layer of bread.

Then the “trofie” which, in their elongate and somewhat knaggy shape, carry the patient marks of the housewives who have formed these little noodles, one by one, with an expert and skilful touch; a rite of former times, crowned by the encounter of pasta and pesto, the savoury sauce of Liguria. Gastronomy and good healt go arm in the paradise of Mediterranean diet and the extra virgin olive oil dignifies a light and digestible menu.

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San Remo is a capital town of the Italian Riviera of Flowers. Its climate has been widely appreciated since the 1800’s, but its artistic heritage, permeated by that typically Ligurian shyness, which escapes from any focus of attention, is still largely unknown. As a matter of fact, its views are extremely suggestive and its architecture and landscape make of this strip of land expanding up to the French boundary a real pearl of Italy.

In the ancient eras it was called Matuzia, to remind one of Caio Matuzio’s patrician palaces, built on the westside of the city, or, as a popular legend tells, as a memorial to the Matuta Goddess, God of the Sea and Dawn. Famous princes, literates, and scientists came to San Remo to enjoy the deep blue sea and the intense scent of its flowers.

High-rise free, this part of the coastline seems to uphold the image being projected by the Riviera and its magnificent albeit hedonistic way of life. Luxury villas lined with palm trees, long expansive beaches with cabana filled beach clubs and a large walk along the Mediterranean.

Flowers abound in pretty San Remo, a friendly reminder that this is the source of all the flowers needed to manufacture special scents.

San Remo lies in a wide inlet between Capo Nero and Capo Verde. It is a place where ends meet. Its old town is called La Pigna and is characterized by perched houses, steep streets, covered alleys, and little squares - just a glimpse of the Medieval times ,where weekly flea markets are held every Saturday. There is also a huge indoor food market overflowing with local produce and wine.

In Pigna there is a hill that tourists climb just to get a breathtaking view of the Levante and the Ponente.

The modern town turned a village of fishermen into an elegant, world-wide famous seaside resort. Nowadays San Remo welcomes tourists and visitors all year round and entertains them with shows and numberless amusements. San Remo is famous for its Casino which was built in 1905 and is the undisputed realm of green cloth, roulette, and slot machines lovers. Just like in Monte Carlo, residents of San Remo are forbidden to play in the casino.

Several selected shows are held in San Remo every year. The Italian Song Festival is but a clear example.

The Russian Orthodox Church, which was built for visiting Russian aristocrats, was also constructed in San Remo as specifically requested by the aristocrats who were attracted to the mild weather in the region.

San Remo is the town of art, culture, and sports: fishing, diving, canoing, wind surfing, and motor boating - together with golfing, riding, swimming, baseball, and fitness facilities.
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San Remo is also called the Town of Flowers - its flowers are well-known all over the world - and this can be clearly seen in its luxuriant gardens, its colorful flowerbeds, and in the town parks where tropical plants flourish.

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Maria Alexandrovna, consort of Alexander II of Russia, spent the winter of 1874 in Sanremo and as a gift to the city she later donated the palms that now decorate the seaside walk of Corso Imperatrice (Empress Avenue).

* Alfred Nobel bought a villa in Sanremo in 1891 and died there in 1896. Since 2002 it has housed a permanent exhibit on the most important discoveries of the 19th century including the research interests of Nobel himself.

* Italian writer Italo Calvino spent his youth in Sanremo and many of his novels, including Il Barone Rampante remind of his attachment to the city.

* Edward Lear, artist, illustrator and writer known for his nonsensical poetry and his limericks, lived and died in Sanremo. His tombstone is still visible in the Foce Cemetery.

* The Italian actor and comedian Carlo Dapporto was born in Sanremo and went on to became a household name in post war Italy.
* The sicilian playwright and Nobel prize winner Luigi Pirandello lived in Sanremo

between 1933-34 and was appointed artistic director of the Casino.

* The writer Tobias Smollett stayed a few days in Sanremo in 1765 and described it thus “St. Remo is a pretty considerable town, well-built upon the declivity of a gently rolling hill…There is very little plain ground in this neighbourhood; but the hills are covered with oranges, lemons, pomegranates and olives….The women of St. Remo are much more handsome and better tempered than those of Provence.” Travels through France and Italy (1766)

* Italian director and cinematographer Mario Bava was born in Sanremo in 1914.

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An ancient dish, from the times of the Saracen raiders, when people would flee to safety in the mountains; since flour, oil and locally made cheeses were readily available in their hideouts, they’d make focaccia stuffed with cheese.

INGREDIENTS:

• 5 cups (500 g) durum wheat flour
• 1 pound (450 g) stracchino or fresh Ligurian soft cheese (you want something mild and creamy that will melt)
• 5 tablespoons extravirgin olive oil
• Salt

PREPARATION:

Make a mound of the flour on your work surface, scoop a well in it, and pour 4 tablespoons of oil, a small ladle’s worth of warm water, and 2 healthy pinches of salt into the well. Work the mixture into a dough and knead it until it is soft, smooth, and elastic, then cover it for an hour.

Preheat your oven to 360 F (180 C). Divide it into two pieces and roll them out into very thin disks the size of your baking sheet (if you have a 12-14-inch diameter metal pizza pan, it would be about right). Lightly oil the pan and lay the first sheet of dough over it. Shred the cheese and dot the dough with it. Lay the second layer over the first, roll the edges up and around to form a rim that seals, and give it a decorative pattern by pressing down on it with the tines of a fork. Puncture the top here and there the moisture can escape as the focaccia cooks, and bake it for about 15 minutes, or until it’s golden brown.

Variations:
You can add an ounce of yeast to the dough to make it puffier.
Some people prefer to use fresh pecorino in the filling, cutting it into thin strips.
In San Bartolomeo (province of Genova) the Osteria di Nanni makes focaccia al formaggio, cuts it into 3-inch squares, tamps down the edges and fries them until golden brown.

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Liguria has a unique city, Genoa, called magnificent by Petrarch whose poems depicted it as regal, leaning against a steep hill, magnificent for its people and walls, whose sole aspect claims it Queen of the sea and of which Wagner stated “I have never seen anything like this Genoa. It’s something undescribably beautiful, majestic, characteristic: Paris and London in comparison to this divine city vanish like simple groups of houses and streets without any shape…”. Today, its historic center with noble palazzos, the Rolli, was declared World Heritage by Unesco.

Cladled between land and sea, living and working in the port, breathing its past in her patrician palaces, passionately fond of the terraced hills that embrace the city, Genova is a city of many different faces.
A modern metropolis and a severe costudian of artistic heritage, an industrious marketplace that also had shady, century-old parks to relax in.

Genoa hides her riches in an historical centre that looks traditionally seaward yet at the same time exhibits a new beauty achieved by restoring the splendour of ages past. Youthfulness springs from the new urban fabric that har restored works of ats and architecture.

Enticement abounds in the vistas between sea and sky, over the cliff rising sheer from the water, in the colours of the verdant hills.

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• Bogliasco: Fava Bean Festival (may)
• Monterosso al Mare: Lemon Festival (May)
• Camogli: Fish Fry and Festival (may)
• Sestri Levante: Vogalunga Historical Regatta (June)
• Masone: Historical Parade (June)
• Calizzano: Corpus Domini Flower Festival (June)
• Genoa: Four Republics Historical Regatta (held every four years, in June)
• Pontinvrea: Cherry Festival (June)
• Stellanello: Alpini Festival (June)
• Riomaggiore: San Giovanni Festivities (June)

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