Part 1 - Planning & Introduction
Part 2 - Venice
Part 3 - Rome
Part 4 - Florence
Part 5 - Tuscany
Part 6 - Cinque Terre
Part 7 - Milan
la vita pigra di vernazza
[the lazy life of Vernazza]
The five colorful villages of the Cinque Terre are surrounded by blue-green water and tucked into the dramatic cliffs below vineyard and olive terraces. We fell in love with this stretch of the Italian Riveria.
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| Sporting Mommy Points T-shirts in Riomaggiore |
About the Cinque Terre
The Cinque Terre is a national park that contains 12 miles of coast on the Ligurian Sea. It is composed of five villages: Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and Monterosso al Mare. There are three options to travel from village to village: the local train, ferries (from late March to early October), or a 7-8 mile hike one-way.
Unfortunately, in recent years, this area has experienced landslides. On October 25, 2011, the region suffered from 22 inches of rain in 4 hours which caused a major landslide, leaving extensive damage and two of the villages under 10 feet of mud.
To Get There
Trains from all over lead to Genoa and La Spezia. From those two stations, there is a regional line that leads to the Cinque Terre. This would be the easiest means of transportation, especially during shoulder and high seasons.
Driving to the region is not recommended because of the winding, narrow cliff-side roads and lack of parking. Parking is really limited or non-existent in this area, partly because the villages cannot be accessed by car; they can only be accessed on foot, boat, or train. We have read that Levanto is probably the easiest place to find parking and catch the train to the villages.
We opted to drive the rental car from San Gimignano to the Italian Riviera, and Matt enjoyed paying the tolls on the way. As it was low-season, we were able to find one of the few parking spots at the top of Riomaggiore.
Getting Around Once There
Today, the main trails between the villages are still closed, but they hope to open them sometime this coming year. It sounds like a few of them have been open since the major landslide, but were closed again last year due to more rain and landslides.
When the trails do reopen, there are two card options to see these villages by foot and/or train: The Cinque Terre Park Card and the Cinque Terre Treno Park Card. The Cinque Terre Park Card can be bought at the trailhead or at most train stations for 6€ per day. It covers the trails and shuttle buses, but not the trains. The Cinque Terre Treno Park Card can be purchased for 12€ per day from the Tourist Information inside the train station but not at the trail head. It covers the trails and the local trains. In addition, they are planning introduce a third card soon that would include the trails, trains, and ferries between the villages.
Since the trails were closed and the ferries were not running yet, we visited the towns by train. We chose to buy a 4€ train ticket that allowed us to stop at each village going one way, and then we bought a return ticket back for 2,10€. It only takes a couple of minutes to go from town to town by train.
If you travel here, expect to go with the flow. The train usually leaves each town once every hour and is usually late (which in our case means we are on-time for once!). Also, not all trains stop in each village, so it is important to look at the screen or ask to make sure you are getting on the correct train.
Riomaggiore
Our first glimpse of this village left our eyes wide in amazement. The blue-green water and the colorful buildings were picture-perfect. We fell in love immediately with the Cinque Terre. How could we not with views like this?
Matt captured this lovely panoramic view. Amanda is at the bottom right, likely taking the above photo.
The beaches are rocky, but in the summer, locals and tourists alike lay out on the large rocks and swim in the harbor. Of all the villages, Monterosso is the only one with a sand beach.
Despite it being February, we soaked up some sun and enjoyed this view for a while.
We spent most of the day walking around with no plans other than to enjoy this little slice of paradise. There were a few shops and cafes open, but many were closed for the winter.
The Via dell'Amore or Path of Love walk is the 20-25 minute easy stretch of the trail between Riomaggiore and Manarola. After World War II, it became a popular place for lovers from the two towns to meet. Today, many couples initial a lock, attach it somewhere along the path, and toss the key into the Ligurian Sea to seal their love forever.
The trail was closed much to our disappointment, but we had remembered to bring a lock and attached it to the gate with many others. Just to clarify, we did not throw our key into the sea, rather we took the key with us back home for safe-keeping.
Manarola
Our next stop was Manarola. This town is only a minute train ride away from Riomaggiore.
It is just as beautiful, maybe more so. It's hard for us to decide.
From the train station, we hiked down into town, past the sea, and to the trail that leads to Corniglia. We were able to walk it part-way before reaching the trail closed gate and turning around.
On the way back to the station, we grabbed foccacia (a local specialty) to snack on while we awaited the next train.
We decided to skip the next stop in Corniglia because we wanted to spend time in Vernazza.
Vernazza
Vernazza is known as the crown jewel of the Cinque Terre and was most affected by the landslide in 2011 (along with Monterosso al Mare). Still today, construction work continues to repair what was lost. It was quite lovely, and we fell into la vita pigra di vernazza (the lazy life of Vernazza).
At this point, our camera battery died. Why oh why did we forget the spare battery and forget to charge the one we had!? #fail ... So we had to resort to using Matt's cell phone (Amanda's iPhone was having issues as well) to capture some photos while we hiked the trail on either side of the village.
There were closed signs, but no gates so... we walked up the trail both ways for a while before turning around and heading back to the village. Pretty sure there were a few others hiking between the towns, but we would rather avoid any potential landslides or fines for that matter.
The trail with this view could be accessed by following the signs to Monterosso from the main street up the stairs and past houses.
Amanda loved seeing the lemon trees on the trail.
And we took a selfie. Kind of.
The other trail leads to Corniglia. To get there, you go up the hill past the train station and follow the trail up according to the sign.
It led to more beautiful views of Vernazza which resulted in us losing track of time (surprise, surprise).
After hiking (and missing the hourly train), gelato was calling our name. We obliged.
Ahh for the love of lemon gelato!
We did make it on the train back to Riomaggiore eventually... :)
Someday, we look forward to spending several days hiking the trails between these picturesque villages, hopefully with a fully-charged camera battery and spare battery in tow!
WOW. you should write for a travel magazine and get paid for it.
ReplyDeleteGrandma