ITALY - Best of Europe 2014 - page 1232

olive oil, and pine nuts, and then poured over pasta. Try it on spaghetti, trenette (the long,
flat Ligurian noodle), or trofie (made of flour with a bit of potato, designed specifically for
pesto to cling to). Many also like pesto lasagna, always made with white sauce, never red. If
you become addicted, small jars of pesto are sold in the local grocery stores and gift shops.
Ifit'srefrigerated, it'sfresh;thisiswhatyouwantifyou'reeating ittoday.Fortakinghome,
get the jar-on-a-shelf pesto.
Focaccia, the tasty pillowy bread, also originates here in Liguria. Locals say the best fo-
caccia is made between the Cinque Terre and Genoa. It's simply flatbread with olive oil and
salt. The baker roughs up the dough with finger holes, then bakes it. Focaccia comes plain
or with onions, sage, or olive bits, and is a local favorite for a snack on the beach. Bakeries
sell it in rounds or slices by the weight (a portion is about 100 grams, or un etto ).
Farinata , a humble fried-bread snack, is made from chickpea meal, water, oil, and pep-
per, and baked on a copper tray in a wood-burning stove. Farinata is sold at pizza and fo-
caccia places.
The vino delle Cinque Terre , while not one of Italy's top wines, flows cheap and easy
throughout the region. It's white—great with seafood. For a sweet dessert wine, the sciac-
chetrà wine is worth the splurge (€4 per small glass, often served with a cookie). You could
order the fun dessert torta della nonna (“grandmother's cake”) and dunk chunks of it into
your glass. Aged sciacchetrà is dry and costly (up to €12/glass). While 10 kilos of grapes
yieldsevenlitersoflocalwine, sciacchetrà ismadefromnear-raisins,and10kilosofgrapes
makeonly1.5litersof sciacchetrà .Thewordmeans“pushandpull”—pushinlotsofgrapes,
pull out the best wine. If your room is up a lot of steps, be warned: Sciacchetrà is 18 percent
alcohol, while regular wine is only 11 percent.
In the cool, calm evening, sit on Vernazza's breakwater with a glass of wine and watch
the phosphorescence in the waves.
Nightlife in the Cinque Terre
While the Cinque Terre is certainly not noted for bumping beach-town nightlife like nearby
Viareggio, you'll findsome sortoftravel-tale-telling hubinMonterosso, Vernazza, andRio-
maggiore (Manarola and Corniglia are sleepy). Monterosso (where bars can stay open until
2:00inthemorning)hasalivelyscene,especially inthesummertime—but no discoteca yet.
In Vernazza, the nightlife centers in the bars on the waterfront piazza, which is the small-
town-style place to “see and be seen.” A town law requires all bars to shut by midnight. Bar
Centrale in Riomaggiore is, well, the central place for cocktails and meeting fellow travel-
ers. (For details, see the “Nightlife” sections for these three villages.) Wherever your night
adventures take you, have fun, but please remember that residents live upstairs.