Cinque Terre

My husband and I spent a week in Florence, Italy, and took several day trips from Florence. We went on a full-day tour to Cinque Terre (Five Lands) with the tourist agency, Ciao Florence. We met at 7:00 AM at Adua Square, next to Santa Maria Novella Train Station and a Burger King. The trip took around two hours, and the bus dropped us off near Manarola. We moved from one village to the other by train and by boat. Paths, trains and boats connect the villages, but cars can reach them only via narrow and precarious mountain roads. 

 Map  of Cinqie Terre (Land between sky and sea)

The Cinque Terre is a string of five seaside villages perched high on the Italian Riviera in the region of Liguria in northwest Italy. The coastline, the five villages, and the surrounding hillsides are all part of the Cinque Terre National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  The five villages are: Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore.

Descent from the car park to Manarola. 

Manarola, the second-smallest of the Cinque Terre towns, has a population of 353. It  is built on a high rock 230 feet (70 meters) above sea level. The village is all ups and downs, with steep narrow alleys leading to the sea. 

Continued descent to Manarola

The one main street of the village leads down to the sea.

Along the main road the boats are pulled onto dry land every time the sea is rough. Although there is no real beach here, it has some of the best deep-water swimming around.

Staircase leading to La Piazza Dario Capellini 

The piazza with houses perched above

Doggie fountain on piazza

Ristorante Aristide is directly across from the train station entrance.

Train tunnel to Manarola train station going to Riomaggiore

Train tunnel entrance  

Track right along the Ligurian Sea

Tour leader Claudia from the tourist agency, Ciao Florence.

Approaching Riomaggiore

Over centuries, people have built terraces to cultivate grapes and olives on the rugged, steep landscape right up to the cliffs that overlook the Mediterranean Sea. This area is known for pesto, a sauce made from basil leaves, garlic, salt, olive oil, pine nuts and pecorino cheese

Riomaggiore harbor

A picturesque view of Riomaggiore

Notice on the right of the pic, people are going up a steep stairway.

What goes up must come down--just like the stairway leading to the boarding area of the ferry.

A view of Vernazza

The domed building (center right) is Santa Margherita di Antochia Church, a 14th century church with an octagonal tower overlooking the Ligurian Sea. According to the tradition, the church was built because a wooden box with the bones of Saint Margaret was found on the beach.

Harbor and tour-boat dock in Vernazza

Boat dock in Vernazza

The boats run frequently  to the villages of the Cinque Terre, except for Corniglia, since this is the only village without water access

Approaching Monterosso by boat

Monterosso al Mare is somewhat flat and spread out, with a charming old town, a modern new town, and the Cinque Terre's best beaches and nightlife. It has the most restaurants and the most modern hotels. It is the biggest (about 1500 inhabitants) and the oldest of the Cinque Terre’s villages. The predominant crops in the area have been grapes and olives. Some fisherman were based in Monterosso, but the area's pastel-hued painted fisherman's cottages were conceived in the late 1970s as a tourist attraction. 

  

In the middle of the pic is the Church of San Francesco (Saint Francis of Assisi) and the Cappuccini Monastery, built from 1619-1622. They are situated on the top of  San Cristoforo Hill, which separates the old part of the town from the new one. As Monterosso was often under attacks by pirates and other enemies, a strong defense system was built to protect the village. In the 16th century, guards kept an eye on the sea from 13 watchtowers, but today only three are left, and one of them is the Aurora Tower, on a steep cliff just below the monastery. It is currently used as a private house.

Monterosso has the biggest beach of the entire coast. 

Under the railway bridge, which opens up to the Old Village, is the historical center of town. The history of Monterosso dates back to 643 when the people living in the hills moved down to the sea, hiding from barbarian tribes. The village is named Monterosso because the ruling family used to have red hair. "Monte dei rossi" means "Mountain of the ginger-haired".

Oleanders in bloom

Monterosso with Piazza Garibaldi in the background

Sculpture  L’Abbraccio (The Embrace) by Renzo Bighetti

Levanto, October 25, 2011

The floods in Tuscany, Italy, on October 25, 2011, were devastating to the Cinque Terre villages. The damage amounted to millions of dollars, and 13 people died. Many walking trails remained inaccessible to visitors for more than one year. Vernazza was the village that was most affected. Torrential rains and an avalanche of mud, dirt and debris roared through the main street of the town. First floors of almost all the buildings in the village were destroyed and had to be renovated completely. Everything in the town was rebuilt, almost from scratch. A monument of the sculptor, Renzo Bighetti, was erected in memory of the flood of 2011.

A sculpture of St Francis, patron saint of Italy, with wolf  by Lombard sculptor Silvio Monfrini  is on the promontory below the Convent of the Capuchin friars.

St John the Baptist Church rose window

This church, dedicated to Saint John the Baptist, is on the left side of the main road entering the older sector of Monterosso. The construction began in 1282 and was completed in 1307, 25 years later. The building has a basilica-type plan that includes three naves and two aisles. The façade is adorned with white and black marble. Above the main portal, there is an elegant rose window, attributed to Matteo and Pietro Campiglio

St John the Baptist Church rose window from inside

St John the Baptist Church main nave    

St John the Baptist Church pulpit and altar

St John the Baptist Church, left side chapel, the Pieta

St John the Baptist Church, right side chapel, John the Baptist with a crucifix staff

Sacred Heart of Jesus with votive candles

Virgin and Child with votive candles

Near the Chiesa di San Giobanni Battiste (Church of Saint John the Baptist) is the Oratorio di Mortis et Orationis (Chapel of the Brotherhood of Death and Prayer.) The seventeenth-century church was run by the Black Confraternity, a secular association dedicated to doing charitable works. Historically, it took care of widows, orphans and the shipwrecked.

Oratory Mortis et Orationis 

Oratory altar

Oratory crucifix

Oratory donation request

FYI: In 1998, the Italian Ministry for the Environment set up the Protected natural marine area Cinque Terre to protect the natural environment and to promote socio-economic development compatible with the natural landscape of the area. Today, millions of visitors visit it every year.  In 1999 the Parco Nazionale delle Cinque Terre was created to conserve the ecological balance, protect the landscape, and safeguard the anthropological values of the location.

Pisa and the Square of Miracles

THE SQUARE OF MIRACLES

The Piazza dei Miracoli (Square of Miracles) is a 22-acre walled complex with four sacred buildings: Battistero di San Giovanni (Baptistry of Saint John), Duomo di Pisa (Pisa Cathedral), Camposanto Monumentale (Monumental Cemetery) and Torre pendente di Pisa (Leaning Tower of Pisa, the bell tower for the cathedral.) Symbolically, the major structures found in the piazza allude to birth, life and death. Getting to the complex from the parking lot requires passing through a large, bazaar-like area, but  once you enter the portal to the Cathedral Square, the whole green, grassy complex spreads out before you in all its majesty. It’s very flat and easily walkable.

Approach to walled complex

Vendors outside the gate to the complex  

Looking back at the portal to the complex

Cemetery, Baptistry, Cathedral & Leaning Tower

HISTORY

The architectural style of the structures is mainly Romanesque, but there are also Moorish and Byzantine influences as well. Pisa was a mighty maritime power, and historians believe that travelers and sailors brought varied architectural influences to the city.  During the Middle Ages, Pisa was a wealthy place and undertook ambitious building projects, such as the Piazza dei Miracoli. Pisa was also victorious in many military conflicts, which brought wealth to the city. Then, in 1284, Pisa lost a devastating sea battle to Genoa and never fully recovered its glory days. In 1406, the Florentine army took control, and Pisa lost its  independence.  From the late Middle Ages, Pisa acquired a reputation as a place of learning and culture rather than as a naval and commercial power. 

  

BAPTISTRY 

(A building next to a church, used for baptism)

 Pisa's unusual round baptistry has a small cone on top of a dome, one dome piled on top of another, and topped by a gilt bronze John the Baptist.  The dome is covered in red tiles on the west side and in lead slabs on the east side. The Pisa Baptistry is an example of the Romanesque style--the lower section has rounded, blind arches--and the Gothic style--the upper sections have pointed arches. The Baptistry is constructed of marble, as is common in Italian architecture.

Busts of the prophets and saints on the Baptistry

Baptistry portal

CAMPO SANTO MONUMENTALE (Monumental Cemetery)

The graveyard is an ancient cemetery located on the north side of the Square of Miracles. According to ancient tradition, the graveyard was built on soil brought back from the Holy Land, in particular from the place where Jesus was crucified. It is said that the local archbishop Ubaldo de' Lanfranchi brought soil from the Golgotha Mountain (site of Mount Calvary) when he returned from a Crusade. The soil supposedly reduced a dead body into a skeleton in 24 hours. This was obviously desirable in a cemetery.  Campo Santo means “Holy Field.” 

The cemetery is a rectangular structure; the outer wall is composed of 43 blind arches, and there is an inner cloister with Gothic arcades. 

A Gothic tabernacle containing statues of the Virgin Mary and Child surrounded by four saints is located above the doorway to the cemetery. Within the cloister you’ll find many sarcophagi and Roman graves, used exclusively for the burial of prestigious Pisans.

  CATHEDRAL AND LEANING TOWER

Duomo di Pisa

The construction of the Pisa cathedral, also known as Duomo di Pisa, began in 1063. The marble façade of the cathedral is in the “Romanesque Pisa” style, but there are also Moorish and Byzantine influences as well. The façade features massive bronze gates which are covered in beautiful relief, depicting different biblical stories.  

Nave of the Cathedral

The bronze chandelier in the center of the nave is known as "Lampada di Galileo” (Galileo Lamp.) According to a popular story, Galileo was watching the chandelier-like lamp sway gently during Mass when the law of the pendulum occurred to him. Galileo timed the swings and realized the burner swung back and forth in the same amount of time regardless of how wide the arc. The original lamp, plainer and simpler, is kept in the nearby Camposanto.

Apse

The apse is decorated with a huge 13th-century mosaic of Christ Pantocrator (ruler of the universe in Byzantine church decoration.) “Christ in Majesty” is flanked by the Blessed Virgin and St. John the Evangelist. In the semi-dome of the apse, Christ is giving a blessing with his right hand and in his left hand holding  a bible quoting St John, chapter 8, verse 12 “Ego sum Lux Mundi” (I am the light of the world.) 

The 27 paintings behind the main altar depicting episodes from the Old Testament and stories of Christ were created from the 16th and 17th centuries by some of the foremost Tuscan artists, including Andrea del Sarto, il Sodoma and Domenico Beccafumi.

Contemporary pulpit/lectern in the Sanctuary

The contemporary altar, to the left of the pulpit, is a result of the liturgy reforms introduced in Vatican II in the late 1960s. Since then, the priest faces the people instead of saying Mass with his back to the people. Maybe the contemporary style would blend in better in a contemporary church.  

The granite Corinthian columns between the nave and the aisle came originally from the mosque of Palermo, captured by the Pisans in 1063.

A coffered ceiling has a series of gilded, sunken panels in the shape of a square. This ceiling is a wooden 17th-century ceiling painted and decorated with gold leaf and bearing the Medici coat of arms made by Domenico and Bartolomeo Atticciati.

The cupola, at the intersection of the nave and transept (arms of the cross),  shows the assumption of the Blessed Virgin into heaven. The transept crossing is covered by a painted oval dome.

THE PULPIT 

The pulpit by Giovanni Pisano, sculpted between 1301 and 1310,  is widely regarded as his greatest masterpiece. After the fire of 1595 it was packed away during the redecoration and was not rediscovered and re-erected until 1926.

The pulpit is supported by plain columns as well as statue-like columns known as caryatids (females) and telamons (males).

The upper part of the pulpit contains reliefs depicting dramatic scenes from the New Testament, from the Annunciation to the Crucifixion. Nine scenes are carved in white marble with a chiaroscuro (contrasted light and shadow) effect.

The Holy Tabernacle in the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament 

The center aisle has a Cosmatesque marble (geometric stonework) surface.

Tomb of Saint Rainerius 

The church contains the bones of Saint Rainerius, patron saint of Pisa and the patron saint of all travelers.

Funerary monument to Francesco Pannocchieschi d’Elci, Archbishop of Pisa from 1636 to 1663, by Ferdinando Vacca

 Below the sarcophagus, just above the inscription, is a skull with wings, a frequent funereal decoration, which symbolizes mortality beyond death (in the hereafter in heaven.) 

Niche with white marble tomb of Nicodemo Camalelli by Bartolomeo Ammannati and above the sarcophagus is a  lunetta (half-moon-shaped space) with the Eternal Father.

Holy water font with Saint John the Baptist holding a crucifix staff

Inside Walls

After the fire of 1595, a lot of restoration projects contributed to the structure’s present appearance. In the early 18th century, the redecoration of the inside walls of the cathedral began with large paintings, the "quadroni", depicting stories of holy men, women and saints of Pisa. These works were made by the principal artists of the era. 

Martyrdom of a Franciscan friar

Croce e santi (Cross and Saints) by Giovanni Battista Paggi

Spirito santo e santi (Holy Spirit and Saints) by Domenico Passignano

Rescue at sea

Madonna delle grazie e santi
(Our Lady of Grace and Saints) Giovanni Antonio Sogliani (initiated by  Andrea del Sarto) 

Disputa del sacramento 

(Disputation of the Holy Sacrament) by Francesco Vanni

Woman kneeling to receive nun’s habit

Madonna delle grazie e santi (Our Lady of Grace with Saints) by Andrea del Sarto

Black marble sarcophagus with bas relief of Christ’s Resurrection from the dead 

The Capitoline Wolf is a bronze sculpture of a she-wolf suckling twin human infants. Since ancient times, the image of the twins, Romulus and Remus,  being suckled by a she-wolf, has been a symbol of the city of Rome and the Roman people.

Modern artwork

Leaning Tower

The Leaning Tower is actually a free-standing bell tower, 55 meters high. It has a five-degree tilt. There are  294 steps to reach the top. Each of the levels has galleries and arcades except for the last one, where there are 7 bells. It took almost 200 years to build, but was already listing when it was unveiled in 1372. Over time, the tilt, caused by a layer of weak subsoil, steadily worsened until it was finally halted by a major stabilization project in the 1990s. Experts believe that this will guarantee the tower's future for the next three centuries.In 1589, Galileo Galilei moved to Pisa to teach mathematics there. For the next three years, he carried out his famous experiments to unravel the mysteries of gravity by dropping objects from the Leaning Tower.

The Leaning Tower, Becky and the back of the cathedral with scaffolding

The tower

The tower with a halo

Soldiers standing guard at the base of the tower