Riomaggiore Hostels

... enjoy the fruits of my labor and take some time off. I sold my beloved car to pay for the trip, and chose backpacking and hostels to make the money last as long as possible! I'll be exploring Spain, France, and Italy for 7 weeks, and will post pictures ...

3 friends from school and I managed to piece together a few weeks when we all had some time off. Christine (from High School) recently left her job to find something better. Laura (from Queen's) is half-way through her PhD and deserved from time off. ...

... eleven total months of travelling! Since we hadn't actually booked any accomodation, although we knew there were spaces at the hostel in Riomaggiore (the first town), we decided just to keep going and get off at the last town, the next stop on the ...

... sauna, and as we got off we realized that we weren't in the best of moods.  Soon after that, however, we decided that Riomaggiore was just about the most beautiful place on earth.  It's a steep village that looks as if a whole lot of houses ...

... to Monterosso, then have lunch and a swim, and then hike back... then trian back to Manarola and then hike back to Riomaggiore.    Vernazza was really pretty as well and the buildings were painted even more brightly than where we were staying. ...

... , and the detour was said to be long and monotonous. We found our hostel, which turned out to be just a room hidden away in the Riomaggiore. No complaints though, as we had it to ourselves, and it had a great view of a boat launch in to the sea. Here, ...

... and my delicious 2€ bottle of wine.  The next morning, I got up early and headed to the most southern town called Riomaggiore. Quaint and similar to Vernazza, it appealed to me and I noticed it had a couple of hostels where I figured a younger ...

... .  We fell asleep to the waves at night.  The hostel is actually shown in every picture you see of Riomaggiore, it's a pink building with green shutters and three balconies.  We immediately got into swim suits and jumped into the ...

... night because the website I book my hostels through said they didn't have any rooms for that night. I was a little nervous, but hostels usually keep a few extra beds for walk ins, which this hostel thankfully did as well. Sunday evening I took it easy ...

... what i've heard soo much hype about, and it did live to it's expectations. i did the Via Dell'amore, which is Riomaggiore to Manarola...then, it progresselly got hotter and harder as we continued up the 380 steps that everyone talks about. Since we took ...

Florence photos here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=164753&id=613699523&l=6143dbc5b4 On the train from Riomaggiore to Florence saw some large marble processing plants on the stretch from Riomaggiore to Pisa which was really cool as we had ...

... so we jumped on the train and were there in no time. We had lunch here, a really nice seafood meal, before walking on to Riomaggiore. The walk between Manarola and Riomaggiore is down what is called "Via DŽAmore" or "Lovers Lane". I donŽt know if anyone ...

... & Versailles / Mona Lisa & Eiffel Tower Companions.......... Californians / Irishmen Beaches.......... Lisbon & Ios / Riomaggiore (It's just rocks!... ok, but it's nice) Value ($).......... Budapest / London Hostel.......... Lisbon / ...

... complaining).  Lucky for him only 2/5ths of the hiking trails were open, due to recent landslides, and the one hike (from Riomaggiore to Manarola) was more of a leisurely stroll if anything else.  But the path from Vernazza to Corniglia was a bit more ...

... Spezia around 8pm. Still lacking accommodation, we managed to randomly bump into a guy that Kate had met during her last stay at Riomaggiore, the town we were intending to stay in. He called ahead for us and organised the infamous Mamma Rosa to meet us ...

... into Florence and hopped on the train to meet me. He looked tired from traveling :( We took the train into the first town Riomaggiore, and found a hostel right away, it was a little on the steep side but we were so sweaty from walking entirely uphill ...

... I just boarded the wrong train. As it turned out it was a stroke of genius because the trails between two middle towns and Riomaggiore are closed due to rotational slip (if only JeffCheese was reading my blogs!) I spent my time exploring each town in ...

... you think of Italy.  It consists of 5 small villages along the Mediterranean coast (Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore).  The setting is incredible...most of the villages are perched up on the cliffs above the ocean and ...

... HIKE 7 miles in a day, I think I'd be forced to give them a bloody lip for even suggesting such a thing. I hiked from Riomaggiore to Monterosso today. This is one of my biggest accomplishments. And I realize that to real hikers, runners or even just mall ...