Friday Trip to Cinque Terre

Map
Pictures

1. I'm getting too old for this. OK, I'm just out of shape.
2. This is the type of place that makes you LOVE Italy.
3. This would be great to do during the summer months when it is warm enough to swim in the sea (although I'm sure you fight more tourists and gain quite a sweat from the hike).
4. The towns are beautiful from a distance, but really don't have much content to them otherwise. Finding things to do when you arrived was somewhat of a chore.

Cinque Terre or "Five Lands" is a series of five towns on the Ligurian Riviera. Each of the towns is connected by a series of hiking trails that twist through terraced slopes, vineyards, lemon trees, forests and streams to display stunning natural and human-created (towns) beauty. The area has been protected under UNESCO since 1998, it is that unique. This is, however, definitely a tourist area.

Monterosso Al Mare

I started my journey at Monterosso Al Mare (Above) on the Northern end of the trails. I had decided to start here because it was the typical starting point and had the best directions to each of the trails. I elected to take the usually traveled "Trail 2" which takes about five hours of strict hiking to go from the first town to the last.

I got distracted when I first arrived. I decided to explore the city for a small while, trying to find a few of the sites outlined in the book I had purchased:

I took quite a few pictures of the man above painting the city "skyline" on the beach. It was absolutely gorgeous, regardless of the somewhat chilly wind. Me being the explorer decided to go into uncharted territory. I headed north, opposite of trail 2 and started to hike into the mountains on another, semi-unmarked trail. I had no idea where it was going and followed it for about an hour. I had reached quite a high altitude before I decided that I should turn around and go in the correct direction. I did however get a decent view of the city from the north:

Before going onto the trail, I again sidetracked. I went into the Capuchin Monastery which supposedly was to have a spectacular view of Monterosso Al Mare. I didn't quite find what I was looking for, but it was interesting none the less.

Beginning the trail, I was immediately taken back by the supreme beauty of my surroundings.

Vernazza

Definitely one of the top two favorites for me as far as physical beauty. It also felt very "cozy." Not much to really say, I stayed here for about an hour, had lunch at a restaurant, I wanted to try some seafood, so I tried a "typical" dish. It basically consisted of some fish (I couldn't identify it...) on top of a piece of potato and covered in olive oil. It tasted very good, was just a tad bit expensive. Oh well :)

I went on top of the lookout tower and got a rather great view of the city:


When I was ready to leave, I attempted to find the trail, which ended up being very well hidden. Onto Corniglia I went.

Corniglia

This was probably my least favorite city. Half of it was under construction and I really strained to find ANYTHING to see there. It was the most neglected of the five towns as well. Unfortunate.

The trail between Corniglia and Manarola was closed due to a landslide. The alternative route was about 2 1/2 hours long. I didn't feel I had 2 1/2 more hours of hiking in me, nor enough daylight, so I got onto the train to Manarola.

Manarola

I liked this town. It is tied with Vernazza in my mind. It's setting into the side of the rock was spectacular.

I wandered around here for awhile, had some people take pictures of me rock climbing and avoiding the waves splashing against the rocks. I couldn't resist the gelato here and ended up having some very delicious Vanilla gelato here. One funny part of this town was that they parked their boats in the streets:


As the sun was setting, I set off onto the famous Dell'Amore trail towards Riomaggiore.

Dell'Amore Trail and Riomaggiore

Nothing incredibly exciting happened at this point. I walked the trail, ended up in Riomaggiore, and eventually hopped on a train to La Spezia. Here are some pictures, however:

The trip back

I can't have a trip without some sort of travel fun, now can I? I bought my ticket to Firenze in La Spezia and doubled checked that there were no connections. Hopped on the train (which happened to be an InterCity Notte, or night train) and found an empty sleeper cabin to nap in. I awoke a few hours later to find myself in Pisa. After the train had left the station, I decided to ask a person on the train staff whether I was actually allowed to be in the sleeper cabins. It was at this point that I found out the train was going to Rome and not Firenze.

I exited the train in Livorno, only to miss a train to Firenze by literally 15 seconds. I waited in the lobby for the next train to Pisa, which was an hour wait and then 45 minutes in Pisa. The rest of the trip was relatively smooth with the exception I ended up with a huge cramp in my neck for a few days because of the way I slept on the train :) At least I didn't have to sleep on the floor of a train station again.

Random Comment

I had a comment on my previous post Poverty, Making a Difference by a woman named Meagan who works with the ONE campaign. Apparently they saw my post and decided to add me to their list of supporters at http://action.one.org/blog/. Kind of neat.

Update: After some language problems, I finally got through to the people at the cantina in Florence and I am starting to volunteer there starting Thursday. Yay!