Cinque Terra - Italy

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On the Tuesday we caught the train from Florence to Cinque Terra on the Italian coast. Cinque Terra literally means 5 towns so it is 5 little fishing villages each perched on the edge of a clifftop. Originally each village was only accessible by boat and then train but now they have built roads as well so according to the Italians it has lost a bit of its charm - and it certainly has. We were there in peak season so it was very busy, and there is nothing quite like being woken up at 6am by the sound of cars and motor bikes roaring up the hill outside the apartment. It is still quite nice though - very picturesque.

We stayed in Riomaggiore, which is the first or most easterly of the villages. You can walk between the towns, which of course we did. The distance from the first to the last village is about 12 kms with thousands of steps up and down the side of the cliff. But we clocked up 18 kms on the pedometer for the day including all the walking to explore each village. It wasn't as hard as the Inca Trail walk we did, but the temperature was in the mid 30's when we finished so it was still very tiring. All 5 villages were very nice, with 4 of them perched on the side of cliff faces. The largest of the villages, Monterossa, which is also the last village we reached on the walk, is reasonably flat and has 2 nice, if crowded beaches. Needless to say the first thing we did when we arrived was to join the crowds in the water.

On our second day we took it fairly easy (recovering from the walk) but did decide to go swimming at our village. This was a different experience. There was a sign pointing to a beach, but this in fact was just a rocky point. But the Italians will swim anywhere and sure enough it was packed with people sunbaking on the rocks and swimming off the rocky headland. We joined them, although getting into the water was certainly a task in itself. All in all Cinque Terra was a very enjoyable experience.

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Photos

The beach at Monterossa
We went for a swim here when we finished the walk between the towns

And you thought we were kidding about how tough the walk was
Yes they are sweat stains on Guy's cap

The "beach" at Riomaggiore
Italians will swim anywhere

Comments

[Michael]

I reckon Guy just dumped his hat in the sea!!!