(Cupping palm to ear)
Friday, 3 October 2014
Is there a clamoring out there for FOOD shots/info/stories?
Okay…a tidbit, an appetizer, you might say. Here on the Liguria coast, one specialty is Tegame, which is a stew/roasted dish of potatoes and anchovies (fresh, mind you), along with tomatoes.
The fish is nothing like anchovies from a can, and quite tasty. (The appetizer version of anchovies with lemon, whew!, very fine!)
I’ve had Tegame from three different restaurants here in Vernazza, and the version pictured is from Trattoria da Sandro (the name varies), up the street from the harbor-square. It is the most carefully formed and stacked of the trio. Potato slices are on the bottom, several layers deep, then the anchovy layer, then tomato slices. Every version is yummy, and I couldn’t pick one as better than the other two; they are just a spectrum.
Today we were bold. We hiked from here to Corneglia (not to be confused with Cornelia, Gee-Ay, although the pronunciation is very, very similar). The route was very up, from sea level here at Vernazza to a high point of 207m, if the sign was right. Since the up and down are not singular, there’s a bit of excess and repeated up/down, so the gained elevation far exceeded 207m…at least that’s the way it felt.
This was the first true trail-day for my Cascadias, which I purchased on the repeated recommendations of my social media friends who’ve recently hiked the AT, PCT, and other fine trails in the USofA.
The CinqueTerre trail materials we saw said to expect to take 1.25 hrs to do the 3.5 km from here to Corneglia. We took breaks, and it took us 3 hrs, maybe a bit more. We may have been slow, but the printed recommendation is shorter than I bet the young hoofers that passed us traversed it. Few of the people we saw made it in that span, I am certain. And, we don’t even know if the 3.5 km distance is close to correct…. Not whining, we had a fine time, and were in the cool morning shadow for much of the trail coming out of Vernazza, which was very very pleasant, despite the elevation gain (pant pant).