Hi Fodorites

I feel bad even asking the question but given this will be my Mum's one and only trip to Europe ever I feel I should...

We are booked to be in the CT 22-26 May 2012. Do you think this enough time for the villages to recover?

Here in NZ our news coverage of the weather events has been non-existent but the various slide shows I've seen online show a level of devastation that seems horrific. It feels like an incredibly short amount of time for the villages to recover such devastation.

What do you think?

Would you continue with the CT in May even if this was a one-off trip (oh, and our honeymoon too??)

Appreciate your thoughts & crystal ball gazes!

CT means? Cinque towns like Dover?

Cinque Terre - apologies for the abbreviation, it seems I've brought my travel shorthand online!

My guess is that since tourism is the life blood of CT, they will do everything to have places ready and open for the main season. But this being Italy, delays are inevitable. So the only thing I suggest is to go ahead with your booking etc for CT, but have a plan B if you have to make a last-minute switch.

Three of the five towns were not damaged at all, and of the two that were, one of them had half the town damaged, not all of it. So if you stayed in either Riomaggiore, Manarola or Corniglia, you wouldn't even see any damage. It may be that by next May, Vernazza (the town that suffered the most) will be receiving visitors and have hotel and restaurant facilities as well. Monterosso al Mare will certainly have half its town up and running for tourists.

You don't say how old your mother is, but many people who aren't planning to hike in the region prefer to stay in Levanto anyway, because it is right next to le Cinque Terre but the town isn't steep. You can take the train or a boat to the other towns. Another possibility is to stay in either Portovenere or Lerici (the latter being especially good if you travel there by car). You might check out all those towns and see if any of them grab you.

Even in years when there has not been epic flooding, spring rainstorms can close the hiking trails between the five towns of le Cinque Terre. So there is never a guarantee that all the hiking trails will be open in your time frame, or that boats will always be running (since they don't venture out if it is very windy).

By the way, CT is common parlance for le Cinque Terre on these boards and elsewhere, no need to apologize for you abbreviation. Besides, the text of your post made it clear where you were talking about to anybody interested in being helpful on Fodor's. My compliments to you for your correct spelling in the unabbreviated form. Many people confuse it with "terra."

Thanks bilboburglar, alec and zeppole.

Last minute switches are a challenge as we are traveling as a group of 5, 3 aged between 65 and 70. We are currently booked to stay in Manarola and can receive a refund of our deposit (roughly 400 euros) until 26 Nov. We are required to pay the outstanding balance in Feb.

It's Lovener2 & I that plan to do the bulk of the walking, the parents will take the occasional stroll. We had imagined that they would be training between the villages, sitting and watching the world go by for the bulk of the time.

I had read on another website that all of the villages had been significantly damaged but that two were seriously damaged.

Thanks and keen to hear others' thoughts also.

Lovener1

ps zeppole - grazie mille for the compliment, it seems that some of my Italiano is sinking in. Off shortly for our 2 hour weekly lesson. Hopefully fewer verbs than last week

I think as long as the rebuilding is left to the individual italians it will be ok, the danger will be if the government takes charge in which case panic.

You might like Genoa which is a true city on the outskirts of the Cinque Terre

Tutti Bene

Genoa is a city. But it is not on the outskirts of Cinque Terre. And it certainly does not offer the same sort of travel experience. If you are staying in Manarola and do not mind if Vernazza is not available in May, you should be fine.

Mamcalice, you are right (it just felt close by on the train. Anyway a good little article to help the OP

http://goeurope.about.com/cs/cinquet...cinque_map.htm

just wondering about the current and near future state of the trains - I know there was some damage, not sure how extensive - will the repairs involve a long-term re-routing?

lovener,

You can google up pictures of Manarola and see how steep it is and whether the 3 people in your party other than yourself and your fiance will be happy with the steepness. The train station is at the bottom of the hill. There is a shuttle bus that operates during most of the day, but it can be extremely limiting to need to depend on it to get around. If everyone in your party is fit enough to do some hill climbing, they should be able to walk around in Manarola without worry. If not, I again suggest Levanto as a flat, pretty, very strollable place with a train station and easy access to Manarola and the other towns, plus all of the coast.

Genoa is more than 90 minutes by train from Riomaggiore. It does not make a convenient base for seeing le Cinque Terre, or even a particularly satisfying day trip given the distance and the complexity of the city. If one wants a "true city" experience, might as well go five minutes south to La Spezia, which has plenty of shopping, traffice and more than one good museum plus a large university. Its bustling commercial port is also home to the Italian navy.

suec,

There is only one train line and, given the terrain, there is on way to "re-route" trains. They go through narrow tunnels inside the mountains that make up the "five lands" of le Cinque Terre. Right now, the tracks have been cleared and the trains run on limited service from La Spezia to Genova, stopping at the 3 undamaged le Cinque Terre towns -- but passengers other than emergency workers are not allowed to leave the trains at Vernazza and Monterosso al Mare.

bilboburger,

Vernazza and Monterosso al Mare cannot be rebuilt without the significant help of government funds and government employees, who have already performed heroically and phenomenally in both reopening the train line and helping both towns stabilize after the incredible amount of damage that was done by 20 inches of rain falling in less than 10 hours. It is not yet fully clear the extent of the damage that the towns suffered when several thousand tons of mud cascaded down the mountainsides and filled the towns up to the height of doorways. Removing this much mud in such difficult terrain is problematic, and only the military has some of the necessary equipment. And it is only after the mud is removed that complete safety assessments can be made by public officials about the stability of many buildings, and the basic underground infrastructure that was completely destroyed (sewer, electricity, phone) can be reinstalled. These are public utlities.

Zeppole, oh dear. L'Aquila finished yet?

Wiki suggests

A Washington Post newspaper article on April 11, 2010, reported that in February 2010, residents of L'Aquila, frustrated that cleanup efforts of the destroyed downtown had not begun after ten months of waiting, had organized daily volunteer crews to haul away rubble themselves. Many of these displaced residents have been re-housed in new housing on the fringe of town, and missed the vibrant life, shops and cafes downtown that were damaged and shuttered (reportedly some 2,000 businesses have closed).

From Rick Steves' website:

http://www.ricksteves.com/news/trave...rre-floods.htm

ttt

Thanks for the extra links At this stage, we are starting to think about a plan b but haven't made a final decision as yet.

loveners,
We stayed three nights outside of Cinque Terre the very end of September (in Framura). We took the train to the villages each day - very easy. The entire region is incredibly lovely and relaxing. The hiking in Cinque Terre was amazing. Manarola was my favorite village. Still, I enjoyed getting away from the CT crowds at the end of the day (we stayed at a farm B&B). Every village we drove through on our way from the train to our B&B was stunningly beautiful so you really can't go wrong.

Zeppole passed along advice to us via these forums that turned out to be quite good. Shocking to see what the floods have done. On Facebook I see incremental pics of Vernazza digging out. Quite the awesome task, but they're making impressive progress. https://www.facebook.com/SaveVernazza