by 
Mackenzie Patel
Hello word travelers! Here is a creative writing piece I wrote a few years ago about my adventures in Cinque Terre, Italy–enjoy!
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| The beautiful town of La Spezia, Italy |
We descend lower and lower into the bowels of the seaside cliff in a Volkswagen Jetta rental car and I grip my mother’s hand so tightly she gasps in pain. We are in La Spezia, Italy right now, driving along a potentially life- threatening road. Italy is stunning, with rows upon rows of sunflowers and rustic old buildings hiding among the vineyards. However, I am unable to see and admire this beauty currently because we are traversing a road so treacherous even Evel Knievel would have trembled. My father, who is skillfully driving a familiar five-speed, keeps a cool, almost tranquil head, although my mother, sister, and I are silently praying.Whoa! Right as we are about to enter another deathtrap road, a bus, the size of a lion next to an ant, comes barreling our way. I close my eyes so tightly they hurt and burrow my head into my mother’s quivering shoulder, like an arid coquina going back into the watery sand. My dad lifts the emergency brake quicker than a speed boat’s wake and our backs slam into the seats. We speedily reverse, as the bus driver gives an angry, condescending look, as though it was OUR fault her bus was too big.
Around another hurtling cliff, and we finally find the place that we have been painstakingly trying to claw our way to. We get out of our car and gaze wonderingly over the side of the cliff that has been weathered by many storms. Wave after startling, clear blue wave, appears before our shocked eyes. They linger a thousand feet below us, and crash over the calm, speckled rocks. They pretend to be jagged like the rocks at Black Canyon (Colorado), but really are smooth as a piece of clear, beer- bottle sea glass that has been in the ocean for decades. Beauty as I have never seen before greets my stunned eyes and my first thought was to never leave this place, to be frozen here in time. The air that I felt on my face is so refreshing it makes me smile and sweep my worries away. This is nothing like the beaches of Florida, where salt water and small cafes (with names like “Joe’s Beach Bar”) are the first thing you see. You witness rare and raw uncultivated beauty that is not destroyed by man’s mistakes, but it is part of the natural earth itself. The snarling, blue waves lick the rocks and greedily engulf them, like a ravaging beast having its final meal.
We manage to scrape by each other and make our way lower into the abyss; it holds an earth-shattering gift of wild, oceanic beauty at the end, and it’s the reason we have driven so far down this winding road in the first place. We cruise by wild, green scenery that gives off a peaceful air though I know it secretly nurses a fearsome spirit. Lower and lower we descend, missing many other cars (by inches) along the way. At times, we come very close to the bite-size Smart cars that hurtle along the 17th century roads, cruising at 100 kilometers an hour. The roads at times are extremely narrow; you never know what’s waiting around the next jagged bend of the cliff. I notice that there are many scooters in Italy, miniscule, and not the eardrum- damaging motorcycles that you hear in the United States. I would think that they would be easier to get around in. We drive and drive, our main goal to reach Cinque Terre alive.
Around another hurtling cliff, and we finally find the place that we have been painstakingly trying to claw our way to. We get out of our car and gaze wonderingly over the side of the cliff that has been weathered by many storms. Wave after startling, clear blue wave, appears before our shocked eyes. They linger a thousand feet below us, and crash over the calm, speckled rocks. They pretend to be jagged like the rocks at Black Canyon (Colorado), but really are smooth as a piece of clear, beer- bottle sea glass that has been in the ocean for decades. Beauty as I have never seen before greets my stunned eyes and my first thought was to never leave this place, to be frozen here in time. The air that I felt on my face is so refreshing it makes me smile and sweep my worries away. This is nothing like the beaches of Florida, where salt water and small cafes (with names like “Joe’s Beach Bar”) are the first thing you see. You witness rare and raw uncultivated beauty that is not destroyed by man’s mistakes, but it is part of the natural earth itself. The snarling, blue waves lick the rocks and greedily engulf them, like a ravaging beast having its final meal.
After a few more minutes of awe-inspiring looks, we finally tear our gazes away and finish out the rest of the drive to the seaside town, Cinque Terre, which means ‘Five Towns’ in Italian. The town, surrounded by majestic, carved-out cliffs, of course, is beautiful too. The little shops, which burrow under the ground, give off a magical, clandestine air. The enchanting shops sell hand-crafted goods and the bakeries offer scrumptious delicacies. After we shop and gaze at the majestic Lugurian Sea which surrounds the town, we drive back up the treacherous road against our wishes to get back to La Spezia. This day was unlike anything I have ever experienced; it was filled with jumbled up emotions ranging from being overflowed with fear to being filled with awe.
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| Mural in Cinque Terre |