It starts with a loaded cup of coffee wedged in the cupholder. The Cooleys reflect in the mirror across a morning of crisp sunshine and vanish behind me as I drive South. There are no traffic jams across the Malahide Estuary, nor the buzz of Dublin buses swerving double-decker chassis’ across the motorway lanes.
It is a mild Saturday in the capital. A Saturday for old friends’ catch ups in Montjoy at midday, a Saturday for old friends’ goodbyes in Portmarnock at sunset.
I spread my legs across the wet grass in Sandycove the next morning and take cold salty deep breaths, the breeze at this stage infused with the memories of a time well-lived in between dips in the Forty Foot and walks across to Dalkey.
A brunch and a coffee later, I sit in the car and look at the trees shuffling over the windshield at Crosswaithe Square, the clock at four in the afternoon now dictating the time for the drive across the city towards the airport.

Backpack check, wallet check, passport check, boarding pass check, face mask check. My heart races at the uncertainties of traveling during the pandemic despite the so-called ‘green list’ and my breathing becomes more difficult under a layer of cloth and guilt. The airport is an eerie look of doomsday and the security control is a true bliss.
Inside the badly-lit terminal, shops are closed under flickering neon lights and drinking fountains are covered in yellow tape. The joy of travel is nowhere to be seen and it is now concealed under masks of colourful materials and anguish.
Fifty passengers join me on what so far seems like a bad idea, and we soar light over the sunset, the worry of COVID somehow left underneath the cotton-candy clouds as we fly across the ripply waves of the Irish Sea.

No service is performed on board. No questions are asked on arrival. It’s a mechanical welcome under PVC shields and half drawn faces. My worn passport meets a rubber glove and it is returned to me before the gates open to an empty and warm arrivals hall. I walk out of the Galileo Galilei Airport setting a firm pace towards the hotel at midnight and cross my legs over a marble step with a panini and beer in hands in central Pisa at two in the morning. I look at strangers and smile in the middle of a night that refuses to die, the tables arranged around clouds of cigarette smoke and half drunk glasses of blonde beer a testimony of a small victory over a pandemic that seems to have been forgotten for a few hours.

In the morning the real trip begins, and a short and fast Frecciabianca ride transports me to La Spezia in that Ferrari-like style only Italian bullet trains can provide. I wait for the rain to clear as I take off my face mask and sip on a coffee at the sound of trains departing. Outside the main station, La Spezia sprawls like a sea of colourful wooden double windows crashing against the lush green distant mountains. I fasten my backpack straps and walk across boulevards of busy traffic and alleyways of school kids playing football.
The town grows quieter as the streets rise from sea level and disappear under the canopies of cliff-hanging trees. The road winds upwards and sweat drips across my forehead. At Biassa, an elderly woman greets me ‘buongiorno’ as I walk next to her tomato field before I take an abandoned trail to the top and across a mountain range that minutes later opens up like a mirage of Mediterranean blue glistening across the horizon.

Isolation in Five Lands. The Cinque Terre comprises five UNESCO World Heritage villages dating as far back as the 11th Century. A rosary of towns perched atop cliffs overlooking the Ligurian Sea in a dramatic line up of bustling rocky beaches, vineyards and crowded housing.
I count eighteen tourists on the usually busy and gentle trail winding across vineyards of green grapes to Riomaggiore and start taking notes:

-La Spezia to Riomaggiore: 2 hours. Moderate hike through abandoned trail.
Riomaggiore’s main street busts like a busy market square selling colourful souvenirs and fruit. I buy the three sweetest peaches I have ever tasted and drink half a gallon of water.

-Riomaggiore to Manarola: One hour. The Via dell’Amore is closed due to erosion. Terribly steep ascent to the top of the hill. My eyes burn with the sweat dripping across my face and my knees suffer with the descent into the fingerprint-like street layout of Manarola. I finish my second bottle of water and look across the hills now covered in low-hanging clouds before setting an even faster pace before the rain.

-Manarola to Corniglia: One hour. Ascent is hard but sheltered. A long walk atop the cliff follows and leaves the coast before entering a rainforest hidden in between bare patches of vineyards. Corniglia now quietly lies in front of me sitting over a rock wall too daunting for the sea to reach, yet too comfortable for the sun to caress.

I check into the empty hostel and open the window for a view of the village underneath me. A village of narrow streets sweet scented with pistachio-flavoured gelatto collapsing towards the sunset as they reach the end of the cliff. I sip on my last coffee of the day and in the small shop a moustached short man sells me fruit and wine. In this warm afternoon the sun fades across an horizon as orange as the fleshy peaches I bite on while I drunkly clench an empty bottle of wine across my legs in the window ledge.

An early night brings an early morning and, while the town sleeps on a quiet Monday, I sweat my way up the steep climb towards the very top of the National Park to San Bernardino.

Corniglia to Vernazza: Avoiding the hiking fee, the road winds up to San Bernardino for excellent views of the five villages. It is a dramatically steep descent to Vernazza guided by the sight of the round tower standing proud by the sea. Vernazza’s main street is packed with restaurants and shops that open to a main square melted upon a semi-circular beach of sunburned bodies, yachts and glasses of Aperol.

Vernazza to Monterosso Al Mare: I pay the hiking fee and walk the most crowded part of the trail. The trail is mostly flat and ends by a hotel with an outdated yet inviting infinity pool by the sandy beach. What Monterosso perhaps lacks in personality, it compensates in gelatto joints, rental parasols and beach space.

And that makes for isolation in five worlds.

And once I finish my celebratory gelatto, I take the ten-minute train hopper to quaint Corniglia, like a good hostess, arms wide open to the late summer with good coffee within its narrow streets and refreshing sea water slamming into its small pier. I finish two days of hiking with an Aperol and a bowl of locally produced pesto, later walking around the village in a sepulchral silence only broken by the distant crashing of waves and the steel shutters slammed against the granite floors.

The last day in Italy is an overcast memory of some alone time in the beach, a short train ride to La Spezia for a change to Pisa and headstands by the leaning tower after a lunch of porchetta.
Upon departure on yet another empty flight, our plane follows the Cinque Terre from above shortly before the land below us is finally engulfed by the warm night descending from the Alps.

In Dublin at midnight, I crash in a somewhat strange place in the depths of Glasnevin, by morning the houses declaring a victory over the rain now clearing the way to a bright and wet sunshine.
I pick up a stowaway and head West beyond the dark patches of heavy rain now blown easterly by the strong Atlantic winds. In Kinvarra I spot the castle where I once parked and slept overnight in the car, and in Doolin, I look across the greenery where I once pitched a tent for four days, in a warm and drunk summer now a memory of the freedom we once took for granted.

And that makes for isolation in six worlds.

“Who wears shorts at this time of the year in West Ireland” I say, as the wind cuts through my skin like knives at the top of the Cliffs of Moher.
“Who do I cry to” I say, as the night slowly draws dark shades across the Gap of Dunloe.

Little I know that any guilt felt by undertaking such trip during COVID times soon transforms itself into consolation. A prize for the difficult times before it and an absolution for the times to come after it.

Stay safe.