Journal Highlights:

​

Wednesday, July 27, 2016:

 

This morning we woke up, had breakfast, finished packing, caught our private boat back to our bus, and started the drive to Cinque Terre (pronounced chink-a-ter-a). J and I are really looking forward to some hiking and relaxing on the beach. 

 

Monterosso means "Mountain of the Redheads" -- used to be ruled by a family of Celctic decent.

 

We arrived in Montorosso, after a long bus day and winding through the mountain pass and tight turns of Levanto, around 4:30pm. We checked into our hotel and briefly enjoyed our Mediterranean view before heading out to familiarize ourselves with the town.

​

We stayed in the "new town" of Monterosso, while most of the character and older restaurants are in "old town." We walked around for a bit, got cleaned up, picked up our hiking and train pass (which Miles had graciously picked up for us), and headed to dinner.

 

For dinner we walked to old town. We wandered around for a bit looking for a place to eat. We just happened upon a hole-in-the-wall place call St. Martino's that was dirt cheap and had some of the best lasagna we have ever had. I had the lasagna, J had the raviolli, and we split a bottle of wine. Total cost? Twenty euros! The owner kept apologizing that they only use plastic forks and knives, but promised us the food was homemade on a daily basis. It was outstanding!

 

On our way back to our hotel we ran into the Toronto family of Dave, Ingrid, Nadia (17), and Ronan (15). We talked to them for a bit as they finished their take out pizza on the cliff overlooking new town Monterosso. The view was fantastic and we had a nice conversation with them. 

 

We then strolled back into town where we grabbed some gelato at a place across from our hotel entrance. Then it was up to bed as we had an early wake-up call for our hike tomorrow.

​

​

 

 

 

 

​

 

 

​

 

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

Thursday, July 28, 2016:

 

We woke up this morning at 4:45am in order to be hiking the Cinque Terre trails by 5:15am. We ate our bananas, yogurt, and Swiss granola bars before heading out at 5:20am. It was still dark when we left the hotel, so I am glad we were running just a few minutes behind schedule.

 

We got to the trailhead around 5:30am and started our hike. It was still fairly dark and this trail to Vernazza has many steps and is uneven, so we would not recommend getting started too early in the day. You definitely need some light to see where you are going, as the trail is pretty narrow and not 100% safe if you can't see your next step. There were tons of steps, the surface was uneven, it was incredibly tight through spots, and our legs were already tired from all that we had done on previously; but, we continued on and were rewarded with some fantastic views.

 

We got to Vernazza in about an hour and half to two hours--right on schedule according to the Rick Steves guidebook. Vernazza is right on the water as well as Monterosso and had some great views. Even though their beach was small, it was much less crowded than Monterosso and seemed to have a more laid back vibe.

 

Next we took the trail from Vernazza to Corniglia. It took us another hour and a half to complete this trail. We did see some pretty great views on this trail as well and then got into Corniglia, which is the one town out of the five in Cinque Terre that is not directly on the water. We then took the 385 steps down to the train station to try to continue on the trail to Manarola. Unfortunately we came to a trail closed sign--you could literally see where the road had been washed out. This was a huge bummer, but we went back to the train station to catch the short train to Manarola. 

 

We arrived in Manarola where J and I tried to hike to Riomaggiore, the last of the five towns. We got a short distance before seeing a trail closed sign due to a rock slid so we headed back into Manarola and found a small cafe with a water view to have breakfast.

 

After breakfast we took the train to Riomaggiore to purchase our boat tickets back to Monterosso. We purchased the one way tickets and enjoyed views of the region from the water.

 

Once we got back to our hotel, we changed into our swimsuits in hopes of renting a kayak for the rest of the day to kayak to a private beach somewhere. Unfortunately the price of the rentals ended up being much more than we were willing to pay, so we found a spot on the beach to lay out for a bit. (Note:  The beaches here, though beautiful views, are quite rocky. So don’t expect to be able to relax or lay out comfortably without a beach chair of some sort.)

 

We ended up napping away most of the afternoon and really didn't care. As the Rick Steves guidebook says, this is your place to relax and take it easy!

 

This evening the Rick Steves company hosted a happy hour for a group. Very nice to relax with the tour group and enjoy some appetizers and drinks on the tour.

 

After the group happy hour, J and I headed back to the same restaurant we went to the night before. The owner was very friendly and recommended we split the anchovies pasta dish, so we did. It was surprisingly good. We split the same bottle of wine that we had the previous night and had a lovely conversation with a Canadian woman who was travelling by herself. We had to cut our conversation with her short as we had agreed to go to dinner (a second dinner for us) with some of the tour group.

 

We met up with the tour group at Diablo--a pizzeria--where we each had a pizza and split another bottle of wine (red this time). We were stuffed by the end of it, but it was really fun to hang out with the group and have some good laughs. We then headed back to the hotel to head to bed because tomorrow is another fairly early wake-up call. Tomorrow onto Rome!

​