Sunset at Manarola

A picture is worth a thousand words... and hopefully ONE STORY!

My buddy Wei Wong, a professional photographer and art dealer, says that the story behind every picture is almost as important as the picture itself, especially when selling fine art.  If that is true... than the pictures we captured our final night in Cinque Terra must be priceless! 

For our last night in the Cinque Terra, Dale and I wanted to return to the second town, Manarola, to capture the magic shot of the lights turning on in the town at dusk.  (The best advise on getting great pictures from the pros is to shoot during either the first or last hour of the day when the light is at its best.  Hence, our trip with photographers over the past week have centered on those hours.)  However, when we went to the train station, we had misread the schedule and missed the train by two minutes!  (Trains in the Cinque Terra are a little unique… not every train stops at every town.)  Our only option was to catch the 8:40pm train to the third or first town, and hike 2 kilometers from there to catch optimal light from 9:10 – 9:25.  Then, we had to be on the 9:33 train or be stuck in that town for the rest of the night!

Never one to back down from a challenge, we caught the train to the third town and started running.  The map made it seem like it was only an inch… but it was at least 2 km!  By the time we reached the town 15 minutes later, sweat was pouring down our faces and our hands were shaking as we steadied our tripods.  However, the moment we saw our first images, we knew it was worth it.  (Even if it wasn’t as tranquil the pictures let on!)

Dale's shot at Manarola... not bad for a professional.

We hurriedly grabbed as many shots as we could get, then grabbed our gear and were off.  As we dove into the train at 9:32 and 30 seconds, we breathed a big sigh of relief and headed home… knowing that we will smile every time we see the Sunset of Manarola hanging on the wall!

~ J. Twice

** By the way – if you want to get good pictures of sunset or twighlight, be sure to have your camera on a tripod or other hard surface, because the lens needs to stay “open” gathering light for longer than your hand can hold the camera steady!  And take it off "GREEN SQUARE!"