Not 80 more stairs…Cinque Terre

I have been dreaming of Cinque Terre for many, many years and I finally made it there! The only way to get to the five towns is by train, tourist boats or hiking trails. And there are no museums, only high mountain trail scenery, beaches, great food, and people watching. The day before we had sailed by all five towns…here are the pictures by sea:

Then we docked at Porto Lotti in La Spezia, packed our backpacks and in the morning figured out the bus system to the train (Stazione) and for 1.40 Euro off we went to town #1, Riomaggiore. Once you arrive you need to find the National Park office and buy your Cinque Terre Card for 5 Euro. This is not hard to do…just follow ALL the tourists. We tend not to dawdle so we were in and out very quickly and off to trail #2 (there are 14 trails in all). The trails are marked with red and white painted stripes so you don’t get lost. This first section, the Via Del’Amore (the street of love), took us only 30 minutes and we still had a lot of energy. You find lots of padlocks hooked on everything as people leave them to show their love (you are supposed to throw away the key so it is a forever thing). One of the locks we saw was a combination lock…I guess that person is leaving his options open…haha.

From Manarola to Corniglia took about 45 minutes. We are already three towns into it. But as we got to Corniglia we had to zigzag up a lot of stairs to town or do what we did and take the long winding road ALL UPHILL. I had promised John a “drink” stop at this town but to really get into town it was many more steps up and then you would have to come down again to get back onto the trail. We had drinks with us so we just stopped and enjoyed the views.

Corniglia to Vernazza is the most dramatic of the hikes. The trail is full of uneven rocks and uneven stairs going waaaaaaay up and then waaaaaay down. So now our knees are feeling the pain. We were really surprised how it was affecting us since we walk so much but usually on much smoother surfaces. Before Vernazza there is this small bar with AWESOME views and we were lucky to get one of the two window seats. But it was still a way to go before town. More up. More down. Finally arriving in Vernazza we found the harbor and a seat at a cafe and ordered lunch. Next to us was a couple from Canada and next to them was a couple from Australia so we had a great lunch conversation. John ordered the Stuffed Mussels and they were delicious!!!!

Off to Monterosso, the last town. I had booked two nights at hotel Del Limone. We enjoyed a room with a balcony and our own personal Saint to protect us.

Here are the towns by land:

The town was very crowded and I had trouble reserving a room. You can just show up and get a room (signs all over town for rentals) if you are so inclined. This is the only town with a real beach so hence the crowds. Anyway, we had directions to the hotel and found it with no problem but the problem was…there were 80 MORE STAIRS to climb to get up to it and our knees almost couldn’t bend anymore.

Well, we made it and had to go back down those 80 stairs and more for dinner. Meals here were great. They are famous for their salted anchovies, pine nuts, lemons, and wine so what can go wrong? The next morning was market day and we LOVE market days. Unfortunately we didn’t want to buy too much since we had to carry it back to the boat but I did find some salted codfish for codfish balls and popovers. John can’t wait. Then off to the beach for the day. Two chairs and an umbrella cost 20 Euros. The water was great…very refreshing. That evening after dinner we ran into a middle school band concert at the harbor which we found amusing.

Another dream realized…..aaaahhhhhhh.