Cinque Terre, May 21-23

  Vernazza, Italian Riviera, Italy
Wednesday, May 21, 2008

The Cinque Terre (five lands) is an area along the Italian Riviera. It is a group of five towns that hang on the cliffs right along the sea. When people ask what our favorite part of the trip was, we say it is a tie between the Cinque Terre and Paris. The 5 towns and the trails between them are a National Park so the area is protected from development and destruction of the natural habitats. All the towns have look-out towers because the residents had to be wary of Pirates approaching to raid their town. We could just imagine One-eyed Willy's pirate ship approaching on the horizon.

Tower in Vernazza

We stayed in Vernazza and visited all of the towns via the hiking trails between them. Some of the trails were more rustic than others, but all had beautiful views. Most of our pictures are of the scenery because we couldn't get enough of this place.

View of Vernazza

We didn't step foot in a museum the entire time we were here. Jen tried a little swimming but didn't stay in too long. The water was slightly colder than she planned.

We had some wonderful food (and one dish with anchovies that wasn't Jen's favorite). The pasta was the best of the entire trip and the pizza we had was pretty amazing too.

Pesto, yummy

Pesto was abundant and we wished we could have brought some home with us. On the hiking trail between Manarola and Vernazza is a little bar that serves drinks and snacks. We stopped there for lemoncellos (a lemon liqueur that is a signature dink in this region of Italy) in the middle of our hike to Vernazza.

Limonchino

We can't remember who's idea this was, but when we stumbled out of the bar we realized we were a little unsteady and had to hike the rest of the way to Vernazza on wobbly legs on a rustic trail with slippery, steep steps. We made it though and the adventure was worth it.

We hated to leave this beautiful place, but we needed to move on to the final stop on our trip, Florence. We woke up early the day we left and got cappuccinos at the bar across from our room. We said good bye to the Cinque Terre.