2012: The Cinque terre after the flood -POLL-

It is said 2012 to be the end of the world...but for sure this won't be true for Vernazza. Vernazza has already had its Doomsday, it happened on Oct. 25th 2011, earlier than Maya's prediction.

On contrary 2012 will be the renaissance of Vernazza where, since the very first minute after the flood, nobody spent one tear more than necessary and everyone is working hard to return back our wounded towns into the beauty that made them beloved worldwide. In these past 2 months an enormous amount of debrees and mud have been carried away, the town is starting to looks a bit more normal..A wedding has been celebrated on Dec. 10th; the doors of the first floors, 100% of them wiped out in one minute by the wild river, have been replaced with temporary plywood doors and they will be ALL painted by local artists on Jan 6th 2012 .  Signs of strong wish of return to normality. But will it be enough? The huge amount of money needed combined with the logistic conditions and environmental difficulties make the job extremely hard..and the clock is running fast toward the beginning of the touristic season. The Municipality has'nt taken an official position yet, we actually think it's not possible to have one and -of course- we don't want to gamble with predictions in matters that involve people's lifestyle and livelihood, we just want to aks a question in name of all the small business of the other towns. The strenght of  the "CINQUE TERRE" brand, has unexpectedly turned into weakness. The very first message "Flood in the 5 Terre, the Cinque Terre don't exist anymore" left the sign. Too few (even among tour operators and travel agents) are aware that only Vernazza (completely) and Monterosso (seriously but partially) have been hitted. The flood is indeed affecting every business of the 5 Terre and of the entire province, so we do believe it's a fair question..Will Vernazza be ready for tourists in 2012? The answer is likely NO. That's my personal opinion and perception. Assuming that a part of the town itself could be accessible, the problem would be to conciliate tourism and construction sites, to supply a decent level of services and, more than all, to have secured the upper part of the town and the surrounding hills, almost destroyed by more than 100 landlsides. That said..we want to engage a bit more the public with this POLL (that will remain active until the end of February) and try to understand what the scenario will be in case.