Cinque Terre

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We woke up to a cool morning in Florence. The rains from the night before brought in cooler air, and it was fresh and almost chilly when we went out to get our breakfast at the local bar.

Our train departed at 10:28 am, so we were at the station by 10. I’ve found that it helps to have an extra bit of time to make sure we know where the Binario (track) is for our particular train, and then lug our suitcases to the track.

Speaking of suitcases -- although I told the girls to pack light, I didn’t pack as lightly as I should have. My rolling suitcase weighs about 1000 pounds, and lugging it in and out of train stations and up the inevitable flights of stairs we find separating the binarios is just a nightmare! What a pain! To get to Cinque Terre, we had to change trains first in Pisa and then in La Spezia. Lots of stairs. Then, when we arrived in Monterosso, we brought our bags through the little town’s lungomare for about 500 meters to reach our destination. The experience of taking our suitcases to all these little places is one of the less fun aspects of our trip.

At La Spezia, I learned about the little train that connects La Spezia to the five towns of the Cinque Terre. The traditional way to visit the towns is to walk between each of them, stopping to rest and take photos in each of the towns. They say that it takes about 5-6 hours to walk from the first to the last of the towns, but you can also do the walks/hikes in segments. To go on the walks, you must purchase a special train/park pass for 10 euro a day. I bought the passes in La Spezzia, along with a map and the train schedule.

We reached Monterosso by 2 pm, and we were all hungry. As we emerged from the train station, we were faced with a beautiful little bay where you see the only public beach in the five towns of the Cinque Terre. It was beautiful, with bright, deep blue water and waves crashing on the shore. The beach was festooned with colorful umbrellas and lots of people.

As we walked towards our hotel, we couldn’t resist stopping to eat at one of the little bars right along the lungomare. I thought it might be very touristy, but we were hungry and tired. We ended up having a very pleasant lunch of sandwiches and lemonade.

Fortified by our lunch, we continued on our way to finding our hotel. We found it without much effort. It was really cute, and even better, it was on the ground floor! Woohoo, no stairs!!! The girls loved the room because it was decorated all in lavendar, even the bathroom! I think Liliana took some photos of it, which I will share with you.

The girls wanted to shower before we set off to explore a part of the famous hikes -- the path called “Via del Amore”. We caught the train again, going to Riomaggiore. From there, we found the path, walking towards the town of Manarola.

It was fantastically beautiful, with stunning views of ocean crashing into the cliffs, and postcard-perfect views of Riomaggiore and Montera. Along the way, we found that various lovers had fashioned little hearts out of string and ribbons and wire, and they had attached them to the fences that lined some parts of the pathway. It was really colorful and fun. There was also a passageway that had been marked with lovers’ graffitti over the years.

In Manarola, we wanted to continue the walk, but the path between Corniglia and Manarola was closed due to a recent landslide. We were told of an upper hike that went through the vineyards, but it was a long hike (2.5 hours), so we decided to do the shorter hike between Corniglia and Vernazza. We hopped on the train again, getting off at Corniglia, and found the path to Vernazza.

I’ll say that the paths are fantastic, but they are very poorly marked. Part of the adventure is just finding the starting point of the path in each of the little towns. For example, in Corniglia, we walked all the way down to the sea (beautiful walk) before coming all the way back up and finally finding the right path to get to Vernazza. By then it was about 6:30 pm and we knew we would be walking at least an hour.

The path was beautiful, going up the hills and down the valleys separating the two coastal towns. The hills were quite steep and it was definitely a cardiovascular workout -- but a fun one because of the beauty all around us. I kept stopping for photos; it seemed like there was a different and more spectacular view each time we got into an open area. Liliana took a lot of photos as well.

We were back in Monterosso by 8:00 pm, after catching the train from Vernazza to Monterosso. We ate a wonderful dinner at a little restaurant in the piazza near our hotel. We were in bed fairly early -- by 11:00 pm.

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