Day 3: Hiking in Jeans - Monterosso to Levanto

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We woke up and had breakfast in bed again...no calzones or coconut pastries for breakie this morning. We had Italy's other traditional breakfast, corn flakes. We couldn't keep justifying spending too much on breakie! I nipped down the street and ordered a slightly weaker coffee to start our day, latte machiattos, which to Rach's satisfaction was a lot easier to drink than yesterday's caffiene overload.

We spent the morning planning our day, which was largely dependent on the Cinque Terre weather behaving itself, and going by last night's thunder storm and prediction for rain this afternoon, this was no easy task. We settled on heading to Levanto/Monterosso and doing a nice 'little' walk in between.

Before venturing off, we decided to quickly have a sneak peak at 'trail 2 – Vernazza to Montarosso'; one of the infamous coastal trails that is supposed to be closed due to poor conditions. We ventured up and almost out of Vernazza, passed numerous signs warning us the trail was closed however no locked gates and barbed wire like the Via dell'Amore lovers path in Riomagiore. We only went up the path a couple of hundred metres and convinced ourselves that it looked 'open' enough and from the small groups of people we could see up in the hills, decided that we'd try tackle this trail tomorrow.

We wandered back into town for a spot of pizza in the sunshine and laughed histerically at the stupid tourists ignoring the roped off pier trying to capture photos of the roaring surf, only to be drenched in sea water by unexpected waves crashing into the pier.

We took the train into Monterosso and it was like 2 separate climates on one side of the tunnel to the other. The train was all of 3.5 minutes however we were soon wandering in very gloomy overcast conditions. We decided that we'd tackle the 'easy 3 hour hike' from Monterosso to Levanto, a trail described as level easy, flat with hills at start/finish. Well, if walking up almost sheer vertical steep steps for an hour is easy, well these Italians are fit buggers. I was working up a decent sweat and poor Rach was struggling with her niggling back pain. I found a nice big sturdy stick that Rach could use as a walking stick as every hiker we saw was fully kitted out with flashy walking sticks. After what seemed like an eternity of walking up, including a nervous wait as the weather gods decided to shower us with some rain that almost sent us packing and running back down for shelter, we reached the lookout known as Punta Mesco. The view was spectacular! We could see each of the 5 villages from Monterosso to Riomiguire. Despite the hazy overcast skies, we took the opportunity to mess about with some jump shots, lunge shots, panaramas, golf shots...and put the camera to good use. It was also an opportunity to catch our breath, took a moment to rehydrate and try some Italian corn chips which were absolutely disgusting (made even worse when Rach informed me that they had 29% fat!). We were amazed a group of 60+ year old German ladies who had just powered up the mountain behind us. Rach was in awe of their athleticism!!

We kicked on, came to the junction where we needed to decide whether to head back down the mountain to Monterosso or continue on for another 2 hours to Levanto. Rach gave in and decided that we should give the Levanto trek a go, just as long as there were 'no more bloody steps'. The walk to Levanto was soooooo much easier. We trekked through forests and along the cliff tops for a good 1.5 hours until we finally saw Levanto a long way down below us. We passed this bizarre B&B that had decided to decorate the walking path, fence and even their bloody house in little colourful tiles, I think Rach enjoyed this part the most about the walk! We were exceptionally glad when we finally hit level ground down at Levanto beach. We stretched out our tired legs and watched a couple of surfers catching some late afternoon waves (well, trying to anyway...looked like they were just beginning to learn). We made our way to the train to head back to Monterosso to refuel as our bodies were running on empty after about 3 hours of hiking!!

We had dinner at Miky's Restaurant in Monterosso thanks to our friends on Trip Advisor. My ravioli al ragu was stunning and Rach needed a protein boost so ordered the steak which she said was cooked to perfection. I washed my ravioli down with a lovely glass of Sicilian red and brought an end to a very streneous but satisfying day. One lesson we learnt however...if you decide to go on a 3 hour hike, best not to do it in jeans!!

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Photos

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pizza for lunch in vernazza while the lunch was still out!

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Monterosso

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Cinque terre

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wierd monument in Monterosso

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view of all 5 towns after a very tough hour walk up stairs!

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Both lunging for the 5 towns!