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Published: October 26th 2009
Thank goodness Gretchen has masseuse skills ,as I awoke at some ungodly hour of the night with the worst cramp I have ever experienced and she eased my pain enabling me to get back to sleep.The trial of Cinque Terre yesterday we do not want to experience again.
The day dawned bright and clear and a great improvement on the overcast of yesterday and after talking to Leigh,daughter #1 online,she persuaded us to give the Cinque Terre another chance to show off its beauty to us especially as the weather had improved and hopefully the bottom path would be reopened.
We decided that we would go on the basis of travelling to the further most station at Monterossa and if the whole track wasn't open then we would walk the road to the second village of Vernazza and have lunch there and then return to La Spezia by train.We also decided that we would leave a little later than yesterday and were a bit more leisurely over breakfast.
We expected the traffic to be quiter today being Saturday and that was the way it was as we returned to the area around the railway station to find a car park for
RR and parked just a street away from where we were yesterday.
The train timetable we had picked up at the hotel was out of date for as we were buying our tickets we looked up at the screen announcing departures to find there was a train leaving in ten minutes instead of the half hour later we were expecting.
On the train we sat next to a couple of women from the UK who had arrived from Genoa to then take the local train back to start the walk from Riomaggiore.They had already brought their day ticket to do the walk and after we told them that the trail was closed yesterday they began to wonder whether they had been sold a ticket to do the easy 20 minutes between the first two villages instead of being able to do the whole thing which could take up to 5 and a half hours.We had a good old chat with them and swapped stories of our travels until they got off at the first station.We wished them well and said we might see them on the trail,as long as it was all open.
It took another 20 minutes or so
to get to Monterossa and we were pleased top be told when we went to purchase the trail tickets that the whole trail of just over 9km was open.
So at around 11.30am with the sun shining brightly and the sea perfectly calm we set off to give the Cinque Terre a chance to redeem itself to us after yesterdays day from hell !!
It doesn't take too long before the track heads uphill on a narrow path with many steps in what is the longest distance between any of the five villages.The views back to the village of Monterossa change as you round each corner and rise up to the highest point of the whole of the bottom track.
There weren't too many people on the track,which at times is quite narrow and room enough for only one person at a time in places.We did expect as the day wore on though that we would meet more people coming from the other end.
There are a number of spots along the first part of the track to take photos in either direction and at one we offered to take a photo for an American couple from Dakota who looked
like they needed someone to do it for them.And they reciprocated for us but only after we managed to get a noisy bunch of German walkers with their Nordic walking sticks taking up the view and background that we wanted in our photo.
They were a noisy group of 3 couples who then caught up with us a little later on the track making it quite clear through their actions that they wanted us to get out of their way while they overtook us.We did so as we weren't going to let them spoil the day of atonement for the Cinque Terre.
The map suggested that it would take 2 hours to complete the first 3km between Monterosso and Vernazza but we covered it in just over 90 minutes which we thought was quite good considering that our muscles were still a bit sore from yesterday(luckily my cramp of last night didn't return thanks to my masseuse).
It was just after 1pm as we walked into the very picturesque village of Vernazza down the narrow alleyways and quickly found ourselves a restaurant for lunch.We both had a desire for some fresh seafood,a delicacy we have not been able to readily
find in Italy when we had held out high expectations for before we arrived.However we opted for spaghetti with clams for me and Gretchen had a black spaghetti that should have had a prawn sauce but the closet a prawn got to it was to have a look as there was no real tatste of prawns.In any case it was still quite tasty and we washed it all down with a bottle of the local Cinque Terre wine.
It was a busy scene as we sat having lunch with people passing by in both directions.We also had an interesting couple of Poms now living in the French Alps and we spent a good amount of our lunch time chewing the fat and swapping tales with them.
By the time we finished our meal and the bottle of wine an hour had passed and we had to decide whether we would make it to the end of the trail before it got dark.
So at just after 2pm we were back on the trail heading for the third village of Corniglia,the place where we ended our disastarious day of yesterday.As we walked up the main 'street'in Vernazza we met up with
the two women we had chatted to on the train from La Spezia and we swapped details of what was ahead for both of us on the parts of the track we both still had to cover.
This section of 4 km was down to take 90 minutes and we were almost that in doing so.Again the track is quite narrow in parts but it is not nearly as steep as the first section was enabling a quicker pace to be made.We now started to meet more peole coming from the other direction and we figured out that after Corniglia the volumes should fall off as we get towards the end of the daylight.
Our muscles were now starting to feel the two days of some serious walking but we decided to carry on wanting to see the village of Manarola which is set on a small headland and is very compact,even more so than the other 4 villages.
The steps down to the seafront path from the village of Corniglia that yesterday was the last staw for us,wasn't nearly so bad today.Here we met up with a couple from Australia and chatted with them as we walked down the
zigzag path.
The track to Manarola from Corniglia is as easy trail with jush a couple of gentle rises and the track itself was in better condition to step up the pace a little.The 1 hr 10 mins the map suggests for the 1km,which includes the zigzag path to the station from the village, is a bit out and we made the distance in under an hour.
We took a bit of a breather in Manarola and downed a Fanta to get the blood sugar levels back up for the last 1km to Riomagiorre.
The last section is titled 'Via del Amore'or the 'path of love'.There are probably more photo oppotunities on this last section which has a very well developed path which is fully sealed.
We made Riomaggiore 6 hours after leaving Monterosso less an hour for our lunch and only had to wait a short while for a train back to La Spezia.
We cracked open a cold beer on the station platform as we waited for the train to celebrate having completed the walk and having our faith restored in what is a very picturesque little corner of the world.
Daylight saving finishes here in Europe tonight
and we shall be glad to have an extra hour in bed after two days of fairly demanding walking.
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Chris
non-member comment
Yippee
I'm really pleased you are both together still. I would hate to think the Cinque Terre was the downfall of a wonderful trip. Your pics are just what I expected. Marilyn has already started her fitness regime ready for 2011. I'm finding it hard to keep up.