Hike from Porto Venere

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We took the opportunity to sleep in a little, knowing that we had a long walk ahead today.

Without a kitchenette, or utensils, we had limited choices for breakfast. Karina bought some milk and ate her cereal out of my New York Mets cup, while I opted for a rather plain, dry ham and cheese roll. Bleah!

Next we stocked up on lunch - a few slices of pizza and some pesto focaccia, a couple of bananas, drinks and some chocolate - vital hiking supplies! We also quickly visited the souvenir shop before heading down to the station to Porto Venere.

By the time we started out on the hike, around 1pm, Karina was hungry. The 1st part of the walk is a very steep climb past the fortress and beyond - you gain a lot of height in a small amount of time! Part-way up we stopped for lunch, enjoying the panorama of the bay and town below us, the view of the islands and out to sea, and the back-drop of the mountains towards the Swiss Alps!

Time to move on, and upward for a bit, before the track evened-out for a while. This trek is a little more "bush" than the track along the coast, which is more through vineyards and towns than bushland. Moving away from Porto Venere, we continued to gradually climb higher and higher, getting the occasional glimpse of the port entrance behind us and the coastline ahead.

Passing across or along the occassional road for short distances, the walk varied between rock and dirt tracks up sometimes steep inclines, to easy declines on sealed roads. At one stage we mis-read the signs and took a detour on one of the minor tracks, and it immediately became much more difficult. A very steep decline down rocks and a muddy dirt track, we were well and truly headed into the middle of nowhere when we decided that this couldn't possibly be the right track as it was too difficult for most people. So we back-tracked to the road and found our way back onto the right path - another bitumen road, so quite a bit easier - and we'd lost at least 20 minutes in the process.

For a lot of the way forward, there wasn't much to see as the track lead through thick bushland, however there were the occasional glimpses of the ocean or even La Spezia. It wasn't until we got nearer to Riomaggiore that the landscape opened up.

The terrain changed to vineyards, with the track winding past old vineyard houses and through the vines themselves. We could see down into the valley ahead now, still wondering when Riomaggiore would appear. Suddenly, we came upon a picnic area in a clearing on the edge of a cliff. This was perhaps the most breath taking view of either hike, because we could see - all at once - our start in Porto Venere in one direction, the town of Riomaggiore below, and our destination of 2 days ago, Montorosso along the coast, with a few of the other towns in between. There's no way our photos could do justice, and it was staggering to see how much ground we'd covered - epecially considering the terrain - in 2 days hiking.

The final decent into Riomaggiore was a 40 minute walk down a constant decline, with no respite from the angled steps, rocks or roadway what-so-ever. With each step, my feet slid forward in my shoes until my toes hit the front, so it wasn't exactly a leisurely way to finish the day's walk.

All-up, we hiked for about 5 1/2 hours, including short stops for lunch, photographs and to admire the view. It's impossible to say which hike was better - they were both so different and offered different scenery along the way. Today's was perhaps more varied and more of a "bush" walk than the previous - certainly more-so than the first few segments which were "strolls in the park" by comparison.

A hot shower, and we ordered take-away pizza to eat in our room with some 5T wine (white this time) and a couple of beers. We watched KOQ of course (we're running out of episodes) and L&O. Dessert was a couple of icecreams we bought with dinner, missing out on a gelato today. A perfect day to finish our time in Italy!

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