Cinque Terre Cat Story

High on the path between Vernazza and Corniglia, on a hot late afternoon, Martine and I rounded a bend and saw an orange cat lying on its side in the middle of the path. As we approached, the cat lifted his tired head and looked around at us. He appeared to be pretty beat up, and was panting a bit. As we walked around him he dropped his head back to the ground and his eyes glazed over.

The territory along this side of the mountain consists of terraced vineyards and small gardens — part of what makes the Cinque Terre landscape so unique. Next to the path was a stone retaining wall about 12 feet high. Had the cat fallen from the top? A 12-foot drop is nothing for a young cat, but this one looked old and haggard. Perhaps he had broken a leg, or busted up some internal organs.

As we were pondering this, a few other hikers passed by, but they were the chatty types who don’t pay much attention to things. One or two said “oh look, a kitty” and immediately went back to their chatter.

Clearly the cat was suffering. There was nothing we could do, but we couldn’t just leave him there either. We had a little bit of water left, so I cut the bottom out of the bottle to make a small bowl, and we set the water down next to the poor creature.

The cat looked at the water, and then stood up. He gave us a contemptuous look and walked away, with the swagger of an old, arthritic sailor.

We were going the same direction as he, so we followed along. After a few minutes we came to an intersection where a small overgrown footpath veered off to the right. The cat took the exit, and in a final salute he hitched up his tail and unleashed a Herculean quantity of cat stink into a bush. One more contemptuous glance, and then he was gone. We continued on to Corniglia, parched.

3 thoughts on “Cinque Terre Cat Story

  1. Time for some of that lovely chilled white Cinque Terre wine, and a soak in the Ligurian Sea.

  2. Sentence. Fragments drive. The reader mad.

    Reading text composed of sentence fragments is like being in the passenger seat with a start-and-stop driver; theyll race away from the green light, travel a very short distance, then slam on the brakes, causing grammatical whiplash. Sentence fr…

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