Exploring Cinque Terre

Today we explored Cinque Terra, visiting Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and Montessero.

We started our day with road coffees, grabbing fantastic cappuccinos from a nearby gas station. Apparently they have full espresso machines inside gas stations here, making it super easy to “fill up” on both gas and caffeine!

We had a roughly 1.5 hour drive to La Spieza, where we parked and then boarded a train to Riomaggiore where we began our hike through Cinque Terra, which is a coastal region on the west coast of Italy made up of many small cities and towns connected by a walking path along the oceanfront.

Riomaggiore was cute, but very small. Chris grabbed a pizza here that was quite good(burrata, tomato, roasted pepper, and anchovy), and then we started on our hike. The first portion here connecting Riomaggiore to Manarola was completely paved, and had wonderful views of the ocean and surrounding cities.

Manarola was the cutest town built into and up the mountainside. We really enjoyed exploring here, and the restaurants and overall vibe just felt really fun and relaxing. Just outside the city there was an offshoot you could walk on that rewarded us with panoramic views of the city, and the beautifully painted homes filling it(the homes alternate in color, pink, brown, orange, etc). After getting some great pictures, we decided there were a ton of tourists so we made our way through the city and back to the train station. Normally we would have hiked the next leg here, but a landslide had taken out part of the path, so we trained to the next town called Cornigila.

When we got off the train in Corniglia we were greeted by a set of very steep switchback stairs winding their way up the mountain. It was quite a hike! Corniglia was another cute town, but didn’t quite have views like the other spots on the hike would, so we opted to make our time there quick. We did grab gelato there before we left though, and wow was it excellent! Chelsea had a scoop of basil & lime sorbet with a scoop of local honey sorbet, and Chris had a scoop of ricotta and a scoop of pistachio gelato.

After gelato we continued our hike, heading next to Vernazza which was roughly 2 miles away. Vernazza was our favorite location of the day, as it had a very cool fort built on a promontory overlooking the city with a single tall tower. We explored the town and waterfront, and then visited the fort and climbed the tower for panoramic views- it was quite the spectacle viewing everything from up there!

After Vernazza we headed to our final destination Monterosso, which was a roughly 2.5 mile hike away. Monterosso was the biggest city of the day, and it had massive beautiful beaches that were absolutely filled with locals and tourists. We’d planned to get dinner here, but frankly the food looked too touristy for us, and was quite expensive to boot! We hopped back on the train from here and rode it all the way back to La Spieza where we’d parked our car. We found a nice local spot here that seemed authentic, and enjoyed a meal before our drive home.Читать далее