Our Second Favorite Place

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Geo: 44.0998, 9.73869

Definitely loved Cinque Terre! Its a series of five small fishing villages that, ordinarily, is connected by a coastal trail. So you can hike from village to village, and it takes all of a day. Except a series of landslides took out 3 of the 4 trails, we discovered when we arrived. So there went THAT fantasy. lol. The towns are still connected by a series of other trails that are high up in the hill-mountains above the towns. The ascents and descents are somewhat brutal in the blistering sun. So.... we didnt get as far as we wanted. Anyway, Im ahead of myself.

Getting to Cinque Terre worked out really well. We arrived in Milan after another overnight train ride, and caught the next train to Levante, which is just north of the villages. Then we caught a third train to get to Riomaggiore, where our dorm was. All in all, that was something like 16 hours of train rides... not fun. But it was definitely worth the trip out to Cinque Terre! Riomaggiore was probably the second biggest, and southernmost village.

So we go to the village and it was time to find the hostel. Half the bad reviews about the hostel were that the office was located up a giant hill. No shit- the village is built on a CLIFF. So we fully expected to have to lug our packs up. lol, the walk wasnt even far! I have no idea what people are complaining about! Unfortunately, the office was dark and closed when we got there... And theres a note left on the window for Nicole (me) and Hannah to call a phone number for check in. Wonderful except we dont have phones! So Chris watched the packs, like a gentleman, and walked my ass all the way down the hill before I found a public telephone. After 15 minutes I couldnt get the stupid thing to work. So I hiked back up the hill and made Chris go down and try. =) Right as Chris walked out of sight, a girl walks up the hill with a pack. She looked confused.... a little lost. That must be Hannah, I thought. After staring at a map for a couple minutes she walked over. "Hannah?" I asked. "Yeah!" she said, shes an Aussie. "Im Nicole!" I said pointing to the note, "And they want us to call them!" "Well, Ive got a phone," she replied. Oh thank god! Cause a few minutes later Chris came back up the hill, also unable to get the phone to work. She got a hold of the owner, who it turned out was in La Spezia.... He was on his way back. So Chris and I bought some gelato while we waited 40minutes for the guy to show up. And he did finally come, and, also contrary to the online reviews, was quite friendly.

One online reviewer complained of bed bugs, and thats what we were worried about. NO BEDBUGS! WHEW! The hostel was really just his grandfathers old studio apartment with 11 beds crammed into it. lol. His family has been in Riomaggiore for over 600 years! Anyway, it was just me, Chris and Hannah the first few nights. She was very quiet, a lot like me. She really only spoke a few words when spoken to, and the conversation always just died. lol. The three of us did go out for dinner and get pesto pasta at a local place. So freakin good!

Breakfast was interesting the first morning... We had to buy and cook our own at this place. There was an old gas stove in the apartment that you use a lighter to get the flame goin. So we bought a bunch of stuff to cook and tried to get started... The owner had put the lighters above the stove on the vent. Im short, so I couldnt see what I was grabbin at. I just grabbed and found a plastic bag. Maybe theyre in there.... So I pull it down and theres a BOWL of PAINT. Yellow paint. And I almost made it without spilling, and... down it went. Yellow paint everywhere. On the counter. On the floor. Spattered on my feet, my pants, my sandals, the chair. WHAT THE HELL!!!!!!!! Who leaves a bowl of paint above the stove?!?! So I cleaned it up as quick as I could so it wouldnt set. I left my pants and sandals last... which sucked cause the paint did set in them. I now have speckled sandals and pants.... Oh well. So Chris came and grabbed the actual lighters off the vent. We tried to light the stove... and both lighters are empty. lol, damn. So I had to run back to the store to buy another light. We did finally get breakfast. After all the escapades...

Our first day in Cinque Terre we were just gonna relax, but then we found out the trails got knocked out by the landslides. So we were gonna need both days to have enough time to look around the villages. So we set off on the hiking. The coastal trail, along Lovers Lane as it is called (except in Italian its like Villa de Amour or somethin) between Riomaggiore and Manarola (the next town over from us) was the only part of trail intact. So we started off doing that. It was a very short 15min walk. The weather was gorgeous. We had clear blue skies and the ocean is a gorgeous aquamarine color! Chris was like "This makes me want to see what Hawaii looks like!" I just laughed, "It looks like THIS." We wandered around Manarola, which doesnt really take long because its very small... All the towns, except Monterosso, are very small. So we headed up into the hill mountains. The going was brutal at first. It was pretty much straight up this cliff to another very very small village high up in the vineyards, which line all the cliffs above the fishing villages. I would imagine most of the old tourists were disappointed like us that they couldnt walk from village to village anymore. We were by far the minority age group in these towns. All the locals AND tourists were fairly old. lol, but let me tell you... there were a fair number of old folks puttin on their hiking boots and grabbin their poles and trekking up the mountain, and they were NOT lagging behind us! They were keepin pace!! And we were all out of breath and near heat stroke, but none of them had a heart attack! Once we were up, it was great. It was a fairly level hike along the vineyards high above the villages and ocean. It was an amazing view! Then the descent was pretty much straight down, which was hard on the knees. It was shaded in some sort of small foresty region, though. Very pretty.

Chris and I were pretty tired at this point. The hike took us about 3 hours in total, and we were starving. We split a pesto pizza and had a couple of large beers for lunch. Mmmm.. And we needed some gelato cause it was effing hot, so we took the train back to Manarola to get some. Double Mmmmm. I will say we DID walk back from Manarola to Riomaggiore along the easy coastal walk instead of bein lazy and taking the train.

That night we feasted. So when we were in the restaurant the previous night we walked in and immediately smelled this delicious seafood smell. A couple was eating a crap ton of seafood out of a giant dish. They said it was "fish soup". So, Chris and I were determined to have that the next evening. Its called soup, but it more like a thin tomato sauce on the bottom of the dish. The dish is supposed to feed 2 people and we took the challenge...and failed. Way too much freakin food! There were 2 whole white fishies, at least 50 mussels and clams, several sardines, two hunks of squid, 6 giant crawdads and 6 giant shrimp. It also came wish toasted bread. Lemme tell you, it was amazing. =) We drank it with an awesome red wine that was really sweet and bubbly. And then we tried another local specialty called limoncello. Its an after dinner drink, and IT IS STRONG. Holy crap.

Our second day we planned to hike from Vernazza to Monterosso. We made it 10min up the steep ass hill and said "Screw it". Neither of us was heart and soul into a 5 hour brutal hike in the hot sun up a mountain AGAIN. So we had our lazy day. We spent the morning exploring Monterosso (its much bigger than the other villages) and Vernazza. We had more gelato in Vernazza (they had a kit kat flavor!), and then we went back to the beach in Monterosso to veg out. We ate more pesto goodness for lunch- I had pesto foccacia and Chris had pesto lasagna, and we had another couple of big beers (so cheap!). Then we just lied down right on the sand (no beach towels) for an hour or two. =)

That was pretty much Cinque Terre. I loved it. Its so quiet and small. lol, theres absolutely no night life whatsoever. We found ourselves at 830pm wondering what the hell to do.... We would just read our books each night feeling like lame asses cause there was simply nothing to do out there that late. Our last night we did catch the sunset over the harbour, and that was really neat. =)

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Photos

Riomaggiore
Hikin to the second town, Manarola.

Fillin Up the H20
Definitely one of the awesome things about Italy... each town has one or more fountains or faucets with potable drinking water. So you dont have to worry about payin for it.

Old People Kickin our Asses on the Hike
Dude... they were like 3x our age and keepin pace. I felt like such a lazy fat ass. lol.

Lookin Back Down at Manarola
Yeah, that was the ascent... sea level to way the eff up there!

Vineyards
The vineyards we were hikin along from Manarola to Corniglia

Hikin to Corniglia
Lookin down the mountain... It was a steep and narrow trail

Sunburnt and Tired
...yup... time for gelato and the lazy way back to Riomaggiore... by train

Dinner!
A traditional specialty called "fish soup". lol, its made for 2 people, and its a heap load of seafood cooked in a tomato sauce. We could not finish it- we failed. But damn did we try and damn was it good! There must have been like 50 mussels and clams, 2 big white fish, 2 huge chunks of squid, several sardines, 6 large shrimp and 6 crawdads! It also came with toasted bread.

Limoncello
Another specialty of the region. Theres lemon trees everywhere, and theyre in season. This is a really strong after dinner drink. Too strong, lol.

Monterosso
Lemon groves!

Comments

[htoi]

does the water there taste different?

[tinyisgreat]

Actually, that water tasted BETTER than Milpitas water. But most times the water is so so.

[billy]

dude...i totally could have killed that fish soup :p