Italy - Cinque Terre

Cinque Terre, Italy, Coast, Beauty, Nice Wine, Small Towns.  Combine Cliffs of Mohare from Ireland with towns along the cliffs, Add warmer weather and less rain and you've got Cinque Terre!

  We got to our town, by passing town 1, 2, and 3.  Cinque Terre consists of five towns built into cliffs on the water.  Originally people came here to flee hard times during the Dark Ages when Viking and Celtic raiding and domination was high after the fall of the Roman Empire.  Security rested in remoteness.  Of course, as the cities grew bigger, notice of the place was taken and raids from the sea took place.  It was a great little place to raid too as it had fertile farmland and perfect weather for oils, wines, pesto, etc.  Today, though there are no raids, they still have a thick culture of food that is very specialized - pasta, pizza, fish.  As we got off the train and walked through the quaint little village, we immediately saw the chill in this place, dropped our bags off, and walked 1 minute to the beach area for a swim.  After, we got ready and headed to the end of the pier for a dinner on the water. 



  The wine was excellent and local.  In fact in Vernazza, unlike some of the other 4 cities, it is still fully locally owned so pretty much anything you buy is from Cinque Terre's 5 cities.  We had an amazing Pesto Pasta called Trefole al Pesto, and Pesto Lasagna which was delicious as well.



  Where we were staying we could look out the roof and see the ocean and cliffs around.  The building we were in was right along the plaza.   We just enjoyed the evening, the sunset and walked around going up and down stairways and running into cats as light faded away.
You can barely make out the train entrance from the mountain on the lower left, and the castle on the upper right, next to the lights-



  The next day we found that there was a flood like 8 months ago (big destruction), and they were using it as an excuse for lots of stuff - like no bank - so no ATM.  Also our town was so small it didn't have a place to do laundry, which we needed done.  We had attempted to catch a train this day to go do laundry and grab some cash but the Trains were on strike… haha.  We walked through the town, got some Gelado, some more pasta, checked out a couple local shops where I bought a snorkel mask (the only one for sale in town).   I planned to swim from the town we were at to the next town ( looked like it would take about an hour), so first I checked out the water and the area around our town.  Starting with a cliff jump.



I moved into the water and dove down to grab some stuff I found around the cliff area, then swam around for about an hour finding a ton of fish and a few jellyfish.

  This one was about the size of my head, if not bigger, so it was fairly large.  I'd actually never swam around jellyfish like this and was damn glad I had a mask on because that thing was huge and would have probably done some damage if I accidentally swam into it.  The mask I had was super small and crappy.  It actually broke and I had to fix it, and it didn't fit well so I wasn't down to make the swim till I found a better mask.



  We had some swordfish for dinner and a fish for dinner - Hah, just cooked whole and all -



  It was delicious, and I loved the garlic and oil spinach with the swordfish.  We then headed down to the end of the pier and just chilled, reading our books and enjoying the weather, scenery, and the ocean crashing on the rocks.

  The next day was pretty chill.  Again, our vacation from vacations.  Plus I was feeling under the weather for some reason, so we did nothing. :) Except catch a 5 minute train to Monterosso, town #5, walk the beach and look for laundry and an ATM.  No laundry, but we DID find an ATM.  We also caught some great food for a good price with an ocean view before heading back to relax some more.  We did laundry in the sink with a lil backup camping soap for washing clothes and used my belt to dry - tip from Alex -



  Day #4 we caught the train to each town and walked around them exploring a bit.  We found that the 1st town, Riomaggiore was super small like our town and had similar food and setup as our town.

  Town #2, Manarola, had the coolest swimming hole area and we committed to coming back and checking that out the next day.



  It also had a bit more to the town than Riomaggiore, and the food was a bit different than just pasta and pizza and seafood, which is all we had been eating for 3 days.  We decided dinner was to be here today =).

  Town #3, Corniglia, was set up at the top of some 382 steps, so after we caught the train there up we went



  This place is high up and on cliffs even more secluded than the other towns.  Pic of Manarola from steps in Corniglia -

  In fact, to get to the water we had to hike down a different set of steps. 



  Beautiful place to swim so we couldn't resist, plus we were getting pretty hot.  The water looked gorgeous,


 
  After our swim and catching the train to pass Vernazza and on to Monterosso, we stopped off to grab me a different mask real quick so we could snorkel together tomorrow in Manarola and also so maybe I have a mask decent enough for the swim between cities ( I decided I wanted a mask I could rely on because of the jellyfish).

  After changing up in Vernazza and heading out, we were back in Manarola in no time having a splendid dinner.  I caught a pic of Candace's cool hair when she wasn't looking! 



Grilled octopus, lobster and vegetables, and Candace had an amazing veggie pasta.  It was all so good that the people who sat next to us saw it and ordered the same thing.  The octopus was a real treat, and unlike any calamari I'd had or had ever seen.  Thick, not chewy, very tasty,





  The Aussies next to us at dinner were pretty cool people and we chit chatted about travel, Europe, America, and Australia for a good half hour after our dinner was done.  After exchanging info with them and teaching them about AirB&B, we headed home to get to be early for our big hike day.

  We took the train to Riomaggiore and started our trek.  It was nice to already be familiar with the towns and we knew right were to go to get to the hike to village #2, where our swim hole awaited us.
  The hike was really nice, short, and right along a cliff.




Looking back at Riomaggiore -



  In Manarola we plopped into the water and snorkeled a bit while cooling off.  I swam between these two cliffs to finish off our swim and off we were to the next town!



  Little did we know that the Costal route was closed for the next town so we had to backtrack

Pic of Manarola looking back from the trail -

 
And take a mountainous route which was 2.5 hours long.
Later looking back at Montarola -



  It took a little convincing to get Candace along for the trek, but once we got going she was into it and thanked me later.



  Great views, crazy pathway, changing climates, walking through vineyards, forests, down cobbled steps, through rooted trails, it was a thoroughly interesting hike.

View of Corniglia from the trail -



  Once to Corniglia, we had to decide to hit the next trail to home or to train it back.  We decided to tough it out and keep on.  With some quick adjustments to my shoes



(which in our rush in the morning to catch the train and with our lodging situation we forgot a couple things - for me socks, for candace socks AND shoes (she had flip flops lol)).  We caught a market along the road and bought some local apricots, some apples, bananas, crackers, refilled our water bottles, and off we went.  Between Corniglia and Vernazza was a easier hike than the 2.5 hour one.  Only about 1.5 hours and less vertical up and descent.  More along the ocean too we were rewarded with lots of cool, different views from the last hike.



  It was fun seeing restaurants that were literally along the hiking trail (towards the end near Vernazza), where you would have to be a hiker to even really go, or just a local out for a small hike from town.  It was also cool seeing our town we had been staying in from a couple different perspectives



  We enjoyed a jump into the ocean to clean off and a shower, then dinner right at the foot of the steps we were staying at.  We enjoyed an awesome bottle of wine, a fresh anchovy tomato potato meal,



salad, and meeting some cool people from America who were over in Europe 3 months!  The guy, Brennen was a translator, and Basha was in retail.  They kinda quit their jobs and are just traveling around.  Fun conversations!



  After some sleep we were off to Florence the next day!!