Cinque Terre

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Trip Start May 03, 2009 Previous
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  Monterosso, Italian Riviera, Italy
Thursday, May 21, 2009

Buongiorno Everyone!

It goes without saying that any friends we had before this leg of the trip are probably going to dump us.  We just spent 3 days In the Cinque Terre (5 Lands) on the NW coast of Italy and they were spectacular.  The Cinque Terre are 5 little coastal villages linked together by hiking trails, a regional railway, and a passenger ferry.  No cars.  We stayed as 'the honeymooners' in the town of Monterosso at the beautiful Porto Roca hotel which is high up a rock face looking over the ocean.  I should mention that everything is high up a rock face and you will be burning your buns no matter where you go!  Our first day, we struck out on the trail, which is marked by red and white stripes.  It is very narrow and the Italians don't seem to believe in switch backs.  They built stone steps straight up and down the mountainsides.  We quickly discovered that the Eiffel Tower was just a training run

Porto Roca View

!  Hiking along with a group of French tourists (which I have a knack for finding when on vacation), we hauled our cookies to the next town; Vernazza.  The hike covered about 150m vertical and we were very excited to head down into the seaport for a little gelato therapy.  We then decided to press on and try to make it to the next town; Corgnilia.  Corgnilia added another 270m of vertical and after all the stair climbing, we were toast.  We could see the village of Manorolo from the train station, and the final village; Riomaggiore, was only 30min more by foot.  At that point we were spent and took the very crowded, very fragrant train back to Monterosso for more gelato.

After our excellent hiking, and sampling the local seafood at our hotel, we decided the next day would be spent enjoying the ocean, and just chilling out.  A little yoga on the terrace and we were off to the beach.  The beaches here are stone, which is a little tough on the feet.  The water is pretty cool; however, the weather is toasty and sunny so it all works out.  The water is also amazingly clear and makes for some nice swimming.  We planned on returning to a restaurant that we already tried once and liked very much.  On request, I've included a few photos of the foods we had.  I'm weak for a good caprese and they nailed it.  We also enjoyed some of the local seafood, and the pesto that is made in this region of Italy

Monterosso to Vernazza

.  The waiter decided we needed to try some lemoncellos, but after all the prosecco, I forgot to photograph them!

Our last day, we decided to do something a little different.  We got up early, threw back our caffe con lattes, and headed to the beach for some kayaking.  It turns out you can get to Vernazza much more quickly by sea than by narrow stone stairs!  We didn't bring the camera, but trust us that it was fantastic.  There were lots of little caves along the rock face, and you could see everything beneath the boat, including a snorkeler who was towing 2 octopuses.   Guess that's one way to get dinner. 

Tonight is our last night here, and then we are heading back to France, to the town of Bramans.  We'll be staying at a friend's mother's house, switching from the Riviera to the Alps.  In the mean time, a few things we've learned during our first month away are that we will always be gelato junkies, eurorail passes are not as slick as we expected (but are doing the trick), women still sunbathe topless, though not necessarily the ones you would like, and hammer pants are making a comeback. I'm pretty sure we won't have internet access at our next stop, but on June 1 we'll be heading to Switzerland and should be able to find something.   We love hearing from all of you, so drop us a line whenever you can either in reply to the blog posts, or directly to us!
 


Ciao ciao,
-Stopher & Jamie

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

View of Vernazza	Giant Clam	Happy Hikers	Hotel View
Hotel View	Steep Trail out of Monterosso	Looking back at Monterosso from the trail	A wide bridge on the trail to Vernazza!
Trail to Vernazza	Trail to Vernazza	Snail on the trail to Vernazza	Vernazza from the trail to Corniglia
Trail to Corniglia	View to Manorola from Corniglia	Prosecco	Caprese
Local Pesto Linguine	Scampi

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