Cinque Terra walk - Day 1

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Happy birthday to my sister Clare and nephew Harry!

We enjoyed our breakfast this morning, sitting on the roof top terrace of our hotel. We got organized then started our hike to Vernazza. We knew today would be the hardest walk and had decided we would walk to the first town and then spend some time there before heading onto the next town later in the afternoon.

We definitely underestimated how hard the walk would be in parts - the first part was just constant steps up for quite a long time! The weather was very hot too, which made it more challenging. There were times when we were walking through forrests and that was quite pleasant - these were the times we managed to chat in a more positive tone ?. There were so many amazing views along the way, so plenty of opportunities to stop for a photo.

Two hours later and we arrived in Vernazza - feeling very hot but quite pleased with our achievement. We decided to sit at a bar by the water and have a beer - a big beer! After cooling down somewhat we moved to a table to have some lunch. We shared a plate of mixed seafood which is lightly fried and a mixed salad. Delicious! Feeling good about our achievement so far, we decided to have a 1/2 litre carafe of white wine. After lunch I had an espresso and the barman gave us both a shot glass of lemoncino - all which was complimentary. So lovely.

After lunch we went for a swim in the sea - so fabulous and refreshing. We wandered around town, taking in the sights. Around 4:30 we started our walk to the next town, Corniglio. Even though it was later in the day, it was still very hot and of course the walk was mostly up many stairs! Perhaps the beer, wine and lemoncino were not the best options to have on a day you are hiking in 30+ heat! Turns out this walk was longer and harder than our first one - we arrived in Corniglio at 7pm.

We had a delicious gel to celebrate this achievement and had a quick look around the town but we were both pretty tired so decided to get the train back to Monterosso.

After dragging our tired bodies back to our hotel we had showers and freshened up. We decided to just head down to the square and have a pizza for dinner. Once we realised we could get the pizza takeaway, we decided to head back to the hotel, grab one of the bottles of wine we bought on Tuscan Tour and sit up on the rooftop terrace and enjoy the cool breeze and have our dinner. It was probably around 10pm by this time and we enjoyed relaxing and eating the delicious pizza.

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