Blogs from Cinque Terre, Liguria, Italy, Europe - page 37

Today was a late start! Didn't leave for Santa Margherita until 1pm - guess we're getting into the Ligurian lifestyl! Santa Margherita is, of course, beautiful. It's much bigger than the towns we've been in the past few days but no less charming. We really don't think Italy can do any wrong! Now back to the notion of S. Margherita being larger. When I say larger keep in mind it only took us a couple of hours to explore it and then we decided to take the boat to Portofino, another small but beautiful Italian town. The difference with Portofino though is the $$$ it attracts. The boats are like Jimmy's (Pattison) +++ and the quaint little stores of the other towns in Liguria are replaced by Hermes, Louis Vuitton and Cartier. It's laid back wealth ... read more

Our first sleep in Vernazza was a little disruptive between the clock tower in front of our window that rings every hour and half hour from 8am to midnight to the late night revellers in Piazza Marconi which our room looks over. Didn't matter though because it would take a lot to change either of our minds about how superb this place is. We took the 3 minute train to Monterosso this morning. It's the biggest and busiest of the 5 towns but it was by no means "busy" by our standards. It has the largest beach in the Cinque Terre which is the primary reason for its draw. Plus, its the first town so many people start the trail between Monterosso, Vernazza, Coniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore there. While in Monterosso we stopped for a piece ... read more

It's sort of late to be updating this, but it must be done. The weekend started with a trip to Florence. Part of the group did the obligatory David thing, and Melis and I did the leather market thing, having already seen the David. Then there was some Duomo action and some restaurant action (everyone else seemed to really like our restaurant but i ordered the bad dish). The next day we hit up the Ponte Veccia... wow I can't spell. Then the train took us to Cinque Terre. We had some dinner and did some relaxing, after the boys went to Pisa to see for sure that the tower really did lean, and then headed to bed. The hike was Saturday. It ended up being about 8 or 9 miles after our detours. We decided ... read more

this place is amazing. it is by far my favourite. the beaches are gorgeous - even though they're rocky, i don't care. we got here yesterday and are staying in the first of 5 fishing villages - riomaggiore. we have an apartment for 7 of us and are having a massive cook up tonight with about 17 people. yesterday we dumped our stuff and went straight to the beach for about 6 hours, then went out for a beautiful seafood dinner. i'm in heaven. it was so yummy and so much fun with 13 of us. today we went to the fifth village - monterosso, the sandy one. we hired snorkling gear and had a look around the ocean floor. it was an amazing day. on the way back we kind of got on the wrong ... read more

I'm in love. The five tiny fishing villages - "Cinque Terre" - on the Italian Riviera charmed me from the moment I got into Riomaggiore. I'm doing a consolidated entry for my two nights there (not nearly enough), because I didn't really feel like taking time to write yesterday, and because internet access is astronomically expensive in these relatively remote villages. Some of the practical stuff first for my friends and family who've never heard of this place. Cinque Terre (literally "five lands") is a series of 5 small villages on the Italian Riviera. They are, in order from south-east to north-west, Riomaggiore, Manorola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and Monterosso al Mare. The whole area is a national park, and the five villages are linked by a series of hiking trails. The one connecting Riomaggiore (which is where ... read more