Cinque Terre

Our first stop in Italy proved to be a great choice. Cinque Terre is a coastline made up of 5 villages and is incredibly beautiful and picturesque. Good value accommodation is pretty hard to find in any of the villages, so we stayed in the next village along the coast (just 5 minutes by train) in a place called Levanto. By the end of our time in Cinque Terre we were happy to stay there, slightly out of the way of all the tourists and subsequent hike in prices.

 

The first full day in Cinque Terre was my birthday, so we walked from Levanto along the mountainous coastline to the first of the five villages, Monterosso. Monterosso is home to the only beach in Cinque Terre, although you can swim in all the villages. We worked on our tans and worked up our appetites, so that night we went out for a typically Italian meal of pizza (me), pasta (Kim) red wine and gelati. What a way to start a new age! Kim gave me a lot of little Italian pastries as a cake, and boy were they good! She even sung happy birthday! 

The following day, we planned to take the train to the furthest village Riomaggiore, and walk back along the path which links all the villages. We were a little late to start walking however, when the train stopped in what we thought was the tunnel between the fourth and the fifth village. That however was the train stop, and we didn’t realise until the doors closed and we kept going onto the next town of La Spezia. That wasn’t a problem, until we realised the next train back to Riomaggiore wasn’t for another hour! So much for getting an early start to beat the heat! Finally we made it to Riomaggiore and started walking along the path back towards Levanto. A 5 hour hike turned into an all day hike, we couldn’t resist stopping to check out the cute villages and to swim in the naturally formed rock swimming holes. In one of the towns there is a spot where you can cliff jump. I did a baby one, and Kim took on and defeated the papa one, about 7 or 8m. She was standing there for about 15 minutes trying to talk herself into doing it. A crowd formed and one random lady was like ‘just push her!’ Finally when she jumped everyone clapped and went their own separate ways. In the weeks prior to getting to Cinque Terre, there was a landslide which had come down between two of the villages and cut off part of the walking path. This was a pity because otherwise we could have walked the whole way from the fifth village to the first. The final 3 or so hours of hiking was really good, it was the hardest part of the track (but compared to some of our previous hikes, it wasn’t dangerous or super hard) and we did them in record time, powering past everyone! By this time in the afternoon however it was super hot and we were so sweaty! Kim even took a photo to show how sweaty she was (I don’t think she wants me to publish it!). It felt good to pump out a few km’s though and it was perfect terrain for walking. 

In Vernazza we found a cool little place that served takeaway focaccia's, pizza's and calzone's. There was one dude working there, he would take whatever it was you wanted and put it in the oven so it was yummy and hot when it came out, it was such good value we went back! I had a calzone with ham and cheese and a focaccia with olives! Best focaccia ever! 

 

On our final full day in Cinque Terre we took the ferry which stops at 4 of the 5 towns, and again went swimming and took a look at each of the towns. It is always nice to get different views of an area, and it was also pretty cool to see the track where we had walked the day before. It was a very relaxed day, perfectly in tune with the seaside setting.