Cinque Terre - so beautiful! - Cinque Terre, Italy
Cinque Terre, Italy
We left Milan on the train bound for Riomaggorie to start our 3 days at the Cinque Terre. We had both been looking forward to this as have heard so many good things about it so we were super excited!!
Our first night we had booked a room in Riomaggorie one of the 5 towns, we arrived by train and trekked up the steep streets to the reception office and dumped our bags in relief only to find that our actual room was another 10 minutes walk .... uphill! Luckily there was a nice young Italian boy who helped me with my bag while Glen carried his own! haha! Our room was so quaint and lovely with views across the Ocean so we were happy once we got there!!
After a much needed freshen up we headed into town to check it out, it is a gorgeous little town basically one street lined with restaurants, shops, mini supermarkets and it really was buzzing. We walked down to the Marina and Glen jumped off the rocks for a swim. It was beautiful looking back up towards the town and at all the rock faces etc That night instead of going out for dinner we went to one of the gorgeous wee shops and brought lots of delicious cheeses and Salami and had a nice feast and bottle of wine back at our room.
The next morning we woke up packed our bags and headed off to do the walk between the villages ...... we were very gutted to find that due to rock slides and flooding 4 out of the 5 walks were closed to the public. The only part that was open was the 4km walk from Corniglia to Vernazza so we set off to do that! When we arrived on the train to Corniglia we were welcomed with a very steep hill and about a million steps to get to the town ..... not ideal in the heat! It is another very cute town, a lot smaller than Riomaggorie and tiny narrow streets. We brought a nice cold beer from a store and were wandering through the streets when we bumped into a group of older Kiwi couples, the beer caught their attention and we got chatting turns out they were all from Mount Maunganui and we know a lot of the same people .... small world!
We headed off to do the 4km walk to Vernazza which was lovely, some steepish parts quite a few steps and STUNNING views. It was so hot but we were prepared with water and luckily there were a few shady spots. The last few weeks of eating and drinking and not prepared us even though it was only 4km! When we reached Vernazza we were greeted with a gorgeous view looking down onto the town and decided we were very lucky to have not done the walk in the opposite direction as it was very steep! We explored Vernazza for a while and then grabbed a take away pizza and some beers and sat down by the ocean people watching.... what a life!!
After picking up our bags at Riomaggorie we jumped on the train for La Spezia which was where we were staying for the next two nights. Walking to the hostel I have to say we weren't very impressed, I have since named La Spezia 'Dog **** city' it was literally everywhere and I manged to roll my suit case right through a pile. For anyone planning on doing Cinque Terre I would not recommend staying in La Spezia, it is cheaper and still very handy by train but not an overly welcoming city and we couldn't even find somewhere to have dinner! Luckily the hostel we were staying at 'Bella Napoli' was a family run business and they also had a pizza restaurant downstairs which was divine and very cheap and they were all lovely, the father was very Italian spoke no English and walked around in a singlet and shorts, very cute!
The next day after a yummy breakfast at the hostel and a decent cappucino (thank god) we jumped on the train and headed to check out the 2 towns we hadn't yet explored. First stop was Manarola which was gorgeous and small, there were people rock jumping into the ocean and lots of people sunbathing on the concrete, didn't look very comfortable. Next we headed to the last town Monterosso, as the train was pulling in we could see glimpses of sandy beaches which was very exciting! The beaches were packed, there were areas where you could hire sun loungers and umbrellas, by the time we had had lunch it was 3pm so we decided just to find a spot on the sand and sunbathed and swam for a few hours. The water was so lovely and warm which was such a delight! Lying on the beach we could look back down the coast and see the other 4 villages, very beautiful!
Back to Bella Napoli that night for more delicious pizza and wine....... its really starting to catch up with us now!