Day 336: Eastwards to Cinque Terre

Off we go again! Excited about this one, since we were heading for one of the most popular tourist stops in Italy - Cinque Terre, or the Five Towns. This is a cliff-edge national park famous for its small villages clinging to cliffs, beautiful beaches, brightly painted houses, and dramatic scenery. So yeah, definitely looking forward to it!

Walked back up the hill through Genoa to the station where we caught a train to the main station on the other side of town. Then an hour on the express train that stopped at the first of Cinque Terre's five towns. Each town has its own station, but the all-stations trains only run a couple of times per hour (especially in winter, aka off-season).

Waited 20 minutes for our connection before the slow train arrived, but all was good and we got to Manarola, the fourth town, at around 1pm. Our Airbnb host was waiting for us at the right spot, and she showed us the way to the apartment. It's a tiny little hillside town here, not really any roads and only tiny alleyways winding their way around. Definitely a maze to explore!

Our apartment is great - perched right up on the cliff front overlooking the sea and the town. Despite the small size and dated fixtures, it would still fetch hundreds of dollars a night in summer so we'd definitely grabbed a bargain, even if it meant we couldn't go swimming down below.

The weather had picked up quite a bit and was drizzling on and off, so we decided to just have a long lunch in the only restaurant in town that was open. Quite a few other shops, but they're mostly all closed for the season. Food was reasonable, though a little overpriced.

Spent the next couple of hours poking around town, exploring laneways and then relaxing at home enjoying the view. Will go out and fully explore the other towns tomorrow for my world heritage video, hoping for good weather!Read more