Blogs from Monterosso al Mare, Cinque Terre, Liguria, Italy, Europe

A day at the Cinque Terre started early with the 8am train from Montecatini Terme to Monterosso al Mare (the most northerly of the 5 towns) which is a 2 1/2 hour train ride. The Cinque Terre is a rugged coastline on the Italian Riviera composed of five beautiful hillside villages. We started looking around Monterosso al Mare, which is the largest of the five towns and has the only sandy beach in the area. Is a lovely town made up of a newer area and the old town and is relative flat. After a short explore of this village we then hoping a regional train to Vernazza. Vernazza is a tradition fishing village with colourful houses surrounding the small harbour where small fishing boats are anchored. This is a very picturesque village but loads of ... read more

Sometimes it's hard to decide where to go for a long weekend in Europe, this time we decided to visit Cinque Terre in Italy after a recommendation from a friend. Flying in to Genoa, we immediately headed to the train station for a 1.5hr, slow train, ride along the North West Coast of Italy to the first Terre, Monterosso Al Mare where we were staying. Cinque terre comprises of five small and different towns along a small section of the coast. The five towns are Monterosso Al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore. All can be accessed by train but to go just one train stop will cost 4 euros. You can get a pass but we were quite sneaky and didn't pay for any tickets. As it was a sunny day on a Sunday, lots ... read more

We headed out for our hike about 9:30. The first leg of the hike between the 5 towns is from Monterosso and Vernazza. Some guide books say it takes 2 hours and some say 1.5 hours. With tons of stops for photos we made it in 2 hours which is pretty good for folks on Social Security. The trail wasn't that busy or that difficult. In some places the stairs were steep and it was a little tough for Jack's knees. He found it more difficult than Petra, but it probable had more to do with his overall fitness, than anything else. The view are spectacular which is why so many people come here. We arrived in Vernazza to find it was as crowded at Monterosso. ... read more

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 ... read more