Monterosso Lemon Festival

5 go to the 5T

Our day out in the 5T or Cinque Terre - the Five Lands (actually villages) as they are known in language of Shakespeare.

Spicy La Spezia

We have been getting the villa ready for this years holiday guests. This means huge amounts of washing, buying stuff for them to break and- somewhat ambituously- armed with secateurs and a saw, chopping down the diseased palm tree and ramming it in the back of the car. I have to say the palm tree is vicious. It might have plaited fans for leaves which delightfully clatter in a breeze but it turns out that these sit atop stalks that are more heavily armed than a sword fish snout. We wouldn’t normally be doing gardening in flip-flops and shorts but one friend-gardener is scared of heights and the other fell out of a tree (and is thankfully out of hospital) As an aside let me mention that recycling centres in Tuscany are straight up weird. The car is weighed on arrival and departure and then they send you an email detailing how much you have dropped off. Bizarre.

Anyway, we took a day off and went out on a jolly. The original plan was to get a train from Pisa to Monterosso, but that simple, fool proof plan was shelved when Hugo courageously agreed to drive us, a party of ladies of assorted ages and nationalities to the Monterosso Lemon Festival.

On the appointed morning, having been collected from various locations the ladies arranged themselves in the back according to degrees of familiarity, deafness and hat space and off we set.

Since collecting them had meant we were up at the crack of 8am, the first essential pitstop was an emergency coffee and cornetti refuel. The benefits of that that had worn off by half way up the Aurelia and with cordial formalities done I was planning to sleep. Attempts to nod off were however intermittently thwarted by one of the ladies bouts of enthusiasm which translated into surprise seizure of my shoulders at random intervals. Being British, and southern, I was of course hermetically sealed in ice at birth. If anyone touches me I assume I am being mugged or there is a threat to life. (Hugo is the same, should one of my toenails accidentally graze a hair on his leg in the night he screams like a girl.) Accordingly, the frequent explosions caused me to jolt awake with a yelp.

This is a cultural thing- British aloofness colliding with American informality. Despite having worked internationally I can still get this wrong. Last week we invited some newly met Americans around for a BBQ. They politely but firmly declined. Hugo then scrutinised my texts and sagely advised that perhaps they had interpreted my attempt at American friendly informality somewhat unfortunately. I shall no longer invite people we have just met ‘bring your swimmies and we can all hot tub together’ lest a misunderstanding ensue. For the avoidance of doubt, there is no pampas grass in our garden.

An hour later, in need of sleep, coffee we swung off the motorway and into La Spezia

The only problem with our cunning and devious plan to park at La Spezia and get the train to 5T was that everyone else had nicked all the spaces. We queued up next to the ‘Do Not Queue here when the car park is full’ sign until the car overheated. Plan B - we sneak to another carpark entrance and attempt to break in the back way- failed. Plan C- bribe a nearby hotel to let us use their carpark for the day- also failed. There was no alternative but to embrace Plan D- attempt to find street parking La Spezia. This is easier said than done.

If the Cinque Terre is Tuscany’s answer to the Amalfi coast, then La Spezia is Liguria’s answer to Naples. It’s a bustling port/naval/university/historic town.

There is a word missing in the language or at least my lexicon. You can describe the countryside as having a ‘rustic charm’, but what is the equivalent in town? What word describes a town that is busy, that works, that has an unapologetic flawed beauty that it proudly wears chin up? What word captures this and its grit, the heartbeat, the pulse in its energy? Rome has it, but Venice doesn’t. Pisa has it, but Lucca doesn’t. Naples has it but Sorrento doesn’t. La Spezia has it. The name La Spezia comes from an ‘Old Italian word - Spezia ‘meaning spice; medicinal plant’ So maybe I can bend this word to say what I am trying to capture- where the countryside has its ‘rustic charm,’ certain towns have their ..‘spice’.

La Spezia has spicey raw charm. Picturesque but slightly tatty, palazzos line its streets. Some are embellished by trompe d’oeil under the eves, others with graffitti at street level. I loved the rows of orange trees cut into leafy cubes dotted with oranges. It’s definitely more a working town that a touristy/retired one though. Gone were the assorted curly furred handbag pooches we usually see in panting in Lucca. The dogs being walked by body builders were big canine brutes with chunky chains last seen fighting gladiators. As we kerb-crawled looking for a space, within the safety of the car, the prospective daughter-in-law in the big hat swivelled her 3-4 carat diamond solitaire visible-from-space so that it faced the palm of her hand.

I was just thinking that we should just abandon the Badlands which always surround a major railway terminus when Holy Gods, we spied a space behind another car! But it appeared that another car was attempting to get into it- or was it? It reversed into the front of parked car. Then it manoeuvred again.

‘What on earth?’ said Hugo as the car lined up to slam into the side of the parked car. Hugo honked lest the driver was clinically blind, possessed or dead. I gently laid a hand on Hugo’s.

‘Darling heart- I wouldn’t honk’ I soothed ‘Is he attempting to park? (the car was lining up for another direct collision) Or is this a mafia hit? ’

Faced with a honking car on UK plates containing a cargo of assorted over heating middle aged, (and a nubile one) women slippery with suncream and sporting various hats, Johny MacMafiaface, aka The La Spezia Car Rammer made the wise decision to bugger orf. Somewhat uneasy we decided on balance to find another space.

Shortly afterwards we abandoned the car in a faint blue lined spot, crossed ourselves a few times in the hope it wouldn’t be nicked, and shuffled off to bustling La Spezia station. Three rounds of ‘change the platform’ later, we were on the train to Milan, which is also the fast train to Monterosso. We went first class because it cost 40p more than economy.

Rhapsody in Lemon- Monterosso

In a blink of an eye we stepped out into summer, wealth and La Dolce Vita.

The sea was glass bottle green. The sunbathers dark brown with itsy-bitsy bikini’s. The waves swished below, the sea was transparent. I regretted leaving my swimmies in the car- this could have been the first swim of summer.

The little boutiques that lined the seafront promenade were clad in every shade of lemon. Boxes of lemons, festoons of lemons, lemon patterned tea towels, bath towels, table clothes, short dresses, jackets, shorts in lemon or lemon print. Limoncello stands, lemon spritz stands, lemon cake. You name it, it had a lemon on it. Monterossini’s sold their lovely lemons whilst the Instagramati preened, posed and pouted. For a people watcher, it was fabulous. White Lotus? Eat your heart out.

Once through the tunnel that cuts through the headland and into Monterosso proper refreshments were in order. We spotted a table free in a bustling, packed bar just off the main square and ordered a round of lemon spritz – limoncello, prosecco and a dash of tonic water along with a platter of bruschetta topped with salty anchovies. Yummy.

It was all idyllic except for one little thing. There was but one loo. In front of it a queue of cross legged spritz sippers hopped from one leg to the other defying medical science. I thought blows would be struck when one of our party, not spotting the queue that snaked around the inside, inadvertently jumped the line. When she realised she was sent to the back of the queue and gone for about an hour. By then bladders were so full that from a distance it was starting to look like a River Dance rehearsal.

Newly refreshed we mooched from boutique to boutique and church to church. We bought a lemon patterned bucket hat for tennis for me, a fish spoon rest for Hugo, a lemon patterned table cloth for the villa. We bought bits and pieces that the kiddies might like tucked in their Christmas stockings. Hugo then spoilt me, he’d already bought me a beautiful orchid the day before so I am on a roll (and I like it). I’d been admiring a pretty bracelet with stones representing the planets in the universe and he bought it for me, and then a St Lucia shell pendant. How lovely! I was chuffed to bits.

(And even better, the shop keeper whispered his own recipe for Limoncello, which I promptly wrote down on a post-it. Taps nose. This will be the winning entry in our September limoncello challenge)

The chiming of church bells announced that it was later afternoon. A jazz band started walking around, pausing to play in the tiny piazzas.

It was then time for another drink. The innocenti braved the neat lemon juice. I’ve been fooled before and know not to believe anyone who says that freshly squeezed lemon juice is just like orange juice.

One sip of freshly squeezed lemon over ice and Hugo’s face was a picture. His cheeks sucked in, his eyes bulging as the enamel was stripped off his teeth. We combined my orange with his lemon, but even then in barely took the edge off it.

Gradually we mooched back to the station, on our way encountering the quintessential Italian town band in procession. Behind two little girls held hands and danced. I cooed. I love these moments of culture, of innocence, of celebration all things Italian. There is something about it which seems at the same time deeply rooted in Italian culture yet so fragile and transient.

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