Cinque Terre

This weekend we visited Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre translates to “Five Lands”. It is a string of 5 villages along the coast. There is a hiking trail that connects the five. It’s about 12km or 7.4 miles, and takes about 5 hours to hike all the way through. This is if you don’t stop and admire the amazing little villages. Friday night we took the train to the northernmost town of Monterosso. We got in late, about midnight, and stayed at this charming little bed and breakfast way up on a hill. Charming until I looked on the ceiling and saw, what Ted told me, was a centipede. I didn’t get a picture of the thing, my main focus was get it out of my room. Ted was my night in shining armor and killed the thing. Needless to say I spend the night itching, and unsettled. HOWEVER, when we woke up and looked out our window, THE VIEW WAS AMAZING! Our hostess made an amazing breakfast. We had eggs for the first time since we got here! The traditional Italian breakfast served at hotels is coffee and assorted pastries with all kinds of goodness inside. And while everyone knows I’m down for a good pastry, you start to crave something hearty, like eggs. Not only did she bring us eggs, but crepes with Nutella (another favorite in Italy), fruit, yogurts, fried fruit of some kind, cheese, salami, and brioche, and of course my favorite, coffee! It was more food than four people could eat. But we loved it!

We started hiking from Monterosso. It was a good tough hike. Its pretty much all up hill out of the villages, then you go down hill into the next village. From Monterosso to the next town of Vernazza, the hike was nice and steep, but it was short-lived and not bad at all. And once you came up and over the top, the view of Vernazza was breathtaking. Truly unlike anything I have ever seen. Such a reward, you just wanted to run down into the village! When we got into Vernazza, we saw it's little harbor. In the harbor, which is scattered with big rocks, people were stretched out and sunning themselves and swimming in the clear water. A little note about the water, ITS CRYSTAL clear, and turquoise, not blue, not green. I have never seen water this color. It’s amazing. Even in the harbor, the water is clear. We went to a souvenir shop and bought a horribly touristy towel, and found a spot on a rock. Ted jumped in. I am not a fan of slimy rocks and such, so I opted out. (I did swim later, don’t worry!) We layed in the sun for a while and then decided to have some lunch. All 5 villages are fishing villages, so it goes without saying the majority of the menus are fishy. I am not a huge fan of fish, so I must admit, while this was probably my favorite place so far on our trip, the food was not my favorite. But we found this awesome restaurant up in an old castle fort, which overlooked the water. We ordered a bottle of local white wine and had a fabulous lunch. I had a taglitelle with shrimp, Ted had Sea Breem, like sea bass but more mild. So after drinking a bottle of wine, we kept hiking. [Another little side note: before this trip, Ted and I couldn’t share a bottle of wine without being good and drunk. This has slowly begun to change. We can now finish a bottle, and have a nice, functional buzz.] So nice and buzzed we hiked on to Corneglia.

It was a rough uphill. At 2 in the afternoon, in the sun, and buzzed, it was rough little hike. Ted joked we were doing a village crawl, instead of a pub-crawl. Which was just fine with me! Corniglia was a cute little village. We didn’t stay too long; we had dinner reservations in Manorola, the next village over. We hiked to Manorola, an almost flat trail. Very nice after the two we had just hiked. In Manorola, the village is situated around a little harbor, with a jetty protecting it from the sea. It’s very compact, so right over that jetty you get a view of the open ocean and coastline. Dinner in Manorola was a treat. First of all, the restaurant is overlooking the water, and we timed it so we would eat at sunset. It was perfect. On the menu they had fresh sea bass and sea breem as well as barracuda. Ted is much more adventurous then I am with food. He asked the waiter how the barracuda was. The waiter looked to the harbor and pointed to a boat, and said, “it was caught this morning, on that boat, by the Manorola fisherman." That was enough for Ted. I had pasta in a pesto sauce, boring I know. The barracuda, by the way, was really good. It’s a white fish, with a flavor like mahi mahi. I don’t know how such a MEAN looking fish can be so light and yummy.

After dinner we took the train to La Spezia, which is outside of the villages, it was the only place we could get a room!

We took the train the next morning to the last of the 5 villages, Riomaggiore. We strolled through the streets, and got started hiking the last part of the trail.

The last part of the trail is famous. It’s called the Villa del Amore. “The lovers walk”. It’s a very leisurely walk, totally flat, with an amazing view. On this walk people take pad locks, called “love locks” and lock them in various places on the trail. There is a monument right in the middle, with TONS of locks and a little statue. Ted really wanted to do one for us. We bought a pad lock, and etched our initials in it. We decided on TG & WG, since I will be WG soon. We locked it near the monument, and threw the keys to the ocean. It was a really sweet wonderful moment.

After the lovers walk we took the train back to Monterosso, since we didn’t get to explore it the morning we were there. We had a great little lunch, and roamed the city. We found this amazing cemetery. It had been built into the ruins of an old castle. It has graves from 1900, and it is being used as the city cemetery today. It was on a city map, but not in any of the travel guides we looked at. It really was a hidden treasure. We then headed down to the beach. All the beaches are private and you have to pay, but it was so worth it! We got two chairs, and lay in the Italian sun! The water was perfect, crystal clear, and refreshingly cool. The only down side, was that the beach was rocky. Big rocks, and they hurt your feet. Everyone was limping from the water back to their chairs. But I didn’t care it was too perfect. We had an amazing time. We both agreed that this was the best place yet of our travels.

Our bed and breakfast

The view out our window. (There were two windows in our room)

Our table

Our breakfast feast!

This kitty literally posed for pictures.

Just relaxing

So freaking clear!

Perfect.

The view from our table at sunset

The boat that caught Ted's barracuda

Ted's barracuda

On a ferry

Cemetery in Monterosso

Our love lock

Villa del Amore.

ME! Not bad after a month of a "no carb left behind diet" and not much working out!

Ted swimming.

Yes it is indeed paradise.