Steep

The Cinque Terre is a steep, rugged landscape, where the Ligurian Appenines meet the Ligurian Sea. The average grade, I'm told, is at least 30 degrees, and landslides periodically take out the trails connecting the villages, as well as some of the dry stone terraces that make agriculture possible. The national park (Parco Nazionale delle Cinque Terre) and the municipalities have built fences and wire netting in places to prevent damage from landslides, but such efforts can only accomplish so much. Nature carries a heavy stick, and always bats last.

[Fence netting on a hillside overlooking the harbour that marks the western end of Monterosso al Mare.]

[Stone terracing, abandoned but still standing.]

Four of the five villages that make up the Cinque Terre—Corniglia, which sits high above the sea, is the exception—are situated in ravines where streams come out of the hills above to the sea. Three of the villages, in fact, take their names directly or indirectly from their streams: Riomaggiore is "major river"; Manarola in the local dialect means "big wheel", in reference to the waterwheel that powered the local olive-oil press; and Vernazza is "little Venice", so called for the bridges that used to cross the stream as it ran through town.

"Used to" being the operative term. The streams that birthed the villages have long since been paved over and built on, forced underground for their final stretches, though their upper reaches can still be seen at the top of the towns.

[Streambed entering Monterosso: dry in early August, and apparently for some time before. The outlet can be seen in yesterday's photo of Monterosso's old quarter, near the railway bridge, just left of centre.]

[Domestic ducks on the creek in upper Vernazza.]

Nature took her revenge for the paving over of the streams on 25 October 2011, just 12 years after the establishment of the national park. Heavy rains moved slowly through the area, and flash floods came barreling down the narrow ravines in both Vernazza and Monterosso. Three lives were lost in Vernazza, one in Monterosso, and many others disrupted. Vernazza was essentially closed for over a year as residents and volunteers dug out homes and businesses from under metres of mud and debris.

Though the flood is not specifically mentioned, the resilience of the residents is nicely captured in the poem on this re-purposed amphora in old Monterosso, backed by more anti-landslide netting:

The man of the Cinque Terre
On peak and wave
Scorched by sun
Burned by salt
They face the rock
Like the northwest wind.