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Published: June 17th 2011
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Sunset from the tiny marine below CornigliaWe got up and took the train from Corniglia to Riomaggiore, intending to walk to Manarola from there, then from Manarola to Corniglia, then hop the train to Monterosso al Mare to take the last of the trails from there to Vernazza, returning to Corniglia by train. Confused yet? All five towns of Cinque Terre are connected by rail and by trail. Yesterday we did the Corniglia to Vernazza trail and wanted to finish them all. We got to Riomaggiore, one of the bigger towns along with Monterosso, and after shopping around, having the customary cappuccino and stocking up on water, we took the trail from there to Manarola. The trail is called the Via d'Amore and lovers/couples promise their unbreakable love by placing padlocks along the trail and throwing the key in the ocean. Fortunately, I was able to find the cutest little padlock decorated with Cinque Terre and Via d'Amore on it, so I bought two, one to keep as a souvenir and one to put on the fence or someplace along the trail. The walk on via d'Amore was the shortest and easiest of the four trails, with lots of old folks walking along, and hundreds or thousands
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Alexis doing Volare pose in a tiny street in Corniglia of padlocks everywhere imaginable. We found a good place right next to the lover's seat, fastened it on, threw the keys in the ocean, and then sat in the seat for a photo. When we reached Manarola, we shopped a bit, then had lunch at Trattoria La Scogliera. Manoli had a very good seafood salad, Alexis had a prosciutto and mozzarella pizze, and I had a plate of Ravioli al Gorganzola which was delicious.
After lunch we found and started the next trail, to Corniglia, only to discover it was closed due to a rockslide. Oh well, c'est la vie...oopps, sorry, French not Italian. Instead, we decided to hop the train from Manarola all the way to the top town of Monterosso al Mare. On a related note here, a couple of things about the train stations. After buying your ticket, you have to validate it in the station before boarding the train. Otherwise, they can fine you something like 50 Euros! Also, in all of the stations in Cinque Terre, you know there is a train coming well before you can see or hear it. A freezing cold wind blows out of the tunnel! What a surprise the
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The entrance to our hostel, Ostello Corniglia first time! We arrived in Monterosso and strolled around this larger, different sort of town. The train station is actually in the middle of the town, with the new part on one side and the old part on the other, with a decent beach in between. It was a bit cool, but there were still plenty of people on the beach and swimming. Against our better judgement, having read that this part of the trail is a good bit shorter than the one from Corniglia to Vernazza yesterday, but takes even longer, we went ahead with the hike. The first mile or so was mostly up! Alexis wasn't much of a hiker, but she took it like a trooper. After almost two hours, we finally spotted Vernazza, with plenty of pretty scenery along the way, and we were by no means the only crazies on the trail. I forgot to mention that while shopping in Monterosso, we finally find pins of Cinque Terre for Manoli and Alexis. We'd look in almost every souvenir shop in all the towns without finding a single pin!
Since we'd already seen Vernazza the previous day, we headed for the train station only to
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Just some of the MANY padlocks along Via d'Amore find out the next train was over an hour later. We passed time by strolling around the town again, then headed back to the station. By the time we made it back to Corniglia and our hostel was pretty much dinner time. Manoli and Alexis wanted something light, but since none of the fruit stores were still open, we settled for sandwiches to eat on the pretty overlook at the end of the town. We bought three different types of foccacia, all of which were good, and I bought a nice serving of delicious tiramisu... yum! After dinner, we checked out all the places we hadn't been yet in Corniglia, which isn't hard as small as the town is, including the little tower and the loooong walk down (and back up!) to the tiny marina. Back to the hostel for much desired showers and my time to write this journal before bed. Tomorrow we leave for Genoa on the 10:22am train for a two night stay before going to Venice. Going to post this without photos for now, since I have little tiime left on clock and many photos.,
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