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Published: April 11th 2013
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365 steps just to get to Corniglia where our trek started!After a couple of big days hiking, our laundry bag was getting quite full. I ventured out to find a laundramat and brought back breakfast and nice clean clothes even before Rach had gotten out of bed! Now I normally wouldn't start a blog talking about dirty washing however given we are staying 5 floors up, it took quite a bit of courage to hang outside the window and peg clothes to our little clothes line, all the while feeling my vertigo kicking in!
We caught the train to Corniglia, the next village along from us here in Vernazza. Corniglia is the only village of the Cinque Terre that doesn't have a wharf. This is because its perched high up on the cliff. Unfortunately, someone didn't tell that to the blokes building the train line and they proceeded to put the station exactly 365 steps below the town. We decided we wouldn't cop out and take the euro 1.50 town bus, however make the journey up on foot. I decided to count the whole way...making it to about 12 before Rach kindly asked if I could count in my head. I counted to about 300 before I got bored and
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Little streets of Corniglia we were near the top by that point anyway!
We wandered through the village centre, which is the smallest of the 5 villages. It didn't take us too long to do the journey and before long we had found a little outdoor cafe called Bar Nunzio to rest our legs ahead of our next big hike and grap a bite to eat. Our vegetarian pizza was really nice, not that I could say the same about the waitress who was downright rude and chewed like an old bloody cow the whole time on a piece of gum...so disgusting.
After lunch, we found the number 1 place on trip advisor in Corniglia, a yoghurt shop! The frozen yoghurts were so nice and filled us up ready for the hike! We took a couple of panarama shots and bided our time whilst we waited for Rach's 'food to go down', stretched up and started ascending on the hill top route to Manarola.
The first part of a hike in Cinque Terre is always the hardest, and this was no different. We were soon up high above Corniglia and within about 45 minute the trail began to flatten out. The
walk was amazing, we were so high up however never too far away from the ocean, walking through olive groves and vineyards however it also felt that we were on the cliff edge. We got some great arial shots of Corniglia and Manarola as well as some token jump shots for good measure. We arrived at a little hamlet called Volestra, which sits just above Manarola. We attempted to stop here for a break and Diet Coke however after walking around the town for 10 mins, found it to be basically a ghost town with nothing open and no sign of life, so we started our descent into Manarola.
The descent, although easier on the legs, started to take its toll on a calves and ankles. Rach came out with a couple of great quotes including 'my butts so sore I cannot slow down' and 'I wouldn't actually mind going up again for a change'. The descent took us about 45 mins and we were soon wandering through Manarola. Its probably the second biggest village in Cinque Terre and very pretty. We stopped at a cafe to rest our weary legs, grabbed a coffee and took in the village
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Just casually handstanding down the tiny alleys of Corniglia centre.
We wandered up to little vantage point and took a few great snaps of the village. Further on from this vantage point, you could see where the closed coastal trail would take you between Manarola and Corniglia. At about the halfway point, you could see 3 giant landslides that had just completely taken out the trail. Now there's a reason you don't go on closed trails!!
It hit about 5.30pm so we decided on an early dinner. We went to Trattoria Locanda il Porticciolo thanks to our friends on Trip Advisor. The food was amazing. Rach went for the grilled swordfish and I went for the spaghetti marinara...and boy was their seafood fresh and awesome!! Service was really good too and we got chatting to one of the waitresses who was originally from Sydney!
We finished up dinner and trained it back to Vernazza. On tired legs and full bellies, we stumbled up our stairs one last time, packed our bags ready to depart Cinque Terre. Its been a great 4 days, would highly recommend this place to anybody who loves the outdoors. Now we just need to tackle with the Italian train strike scheduled for
tomorrow...watch this space.
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Karen Adamson
non-member comment
Enjoying your blog!
Loving reading all about your trip! Hope things go well with the train strike. I think you will both be very fit by the end of this trip :-) Looking forward to the next instalment! xxx