Italy: Cinque Terre

After our brief stopover in Pisa we continued our train journey to La Spezia and changed trains for Riomaggiore which is the southern-most of the 5 towns that make up Cinque Terre, and where we would base ourselves for a few nights. We were greeted at the station by a fat ginger cat who didn't want anything to do with the salami Kate tried to feed it. We knew it would be quiet because it's the low season, but it was like a ghost town. I kept expecting to see tumbleweeds blowing by. Finding a place for dinner that night was made easier due to the fact that only two places in town were open, so we picked the one with 5 locals at the bar rather than the one with no-one. After browsing the extensive menu we picked the only two items available, a very foccacia-ish pizza and a very microwaved hamburger. Beer was cold though.

Riomaggiore: Main street post zombie apocalypse

Ghost town

This is the town we stayed in: Riomaggiore

The town itself is very picturesque clinging to the hills around a tiny marina. The weather had cleared up by the morning and we had perfect blue skies. The train line between the 5 towns is mostly in a tunnel but pops out at stations like these right next to the sea.

Riomaggiore train station 

The walking path to the next town of Manarola is currently closed due to landslides so we had to catch the train. We missed one train by 20 seconds so had to wait another hour for the next one to make the 2-minute trip which was frustrating. We visited the only shop in Manarola that was open for a coffee and some sort of chickpea flour toasted cheese thing which was good. More spectacular views of this town and we came across our first few fellow tourists in Cinque Terre.

Town of Manaorola

Best train stations in the world, am I right?

The next stop along the line is Corniglia which had many many stairs from the station up to the town on the headland. This combined with the sunshine meant we could actually take our jackets off for the first time in a long time.

Starting our hike through the next two towns

One of the many pretty paths you'll travel along the coast line

Town of Corniglia looking north to Vernazza and Monterosso.

The paths were technically closed due to recent landslides, but it wasn't enforced and the info lady told us which ones were passable.

The walk from Corniglia to Vernazza took about an hour and a half with amazing views the whole way along. The path is very narrow in places so I imagine it would be a bit of a nightmare when it's packed with fat, sweaty tourists in summer.

Looking down onto the town of Vernazza

Vernazza

Leaving Vernazza for the next town of Monterosso

It is about the same distance from Vernazza to Monterosso so after some mild complaining about stairs from Kate we trekked off again as it started to cloud over.

"Dramatic" setting on the camera...ooooh.

The sun was setting as we finally reached Monterosso

Monterosso is the biggest and least pretty of the 5 towns and looked pretty sad at this time of year. We had planned to have dinner there but the only restaurant that was open had finished serving food for the day (it was 6pm) so we just had a drink and headed for the train station. Knowing that only two places would be open back in Riomaggiore we went to Vernazza to find a restaurant. The first place we tried wasn't serving food, and the only other place with food had a 100% seafood menu which we are not too keen on. So to pass the time until the next train Kate found a friendly cat to play with in the town square. Back in Riomaggiore we tried the other restaurant and had a pretty decent pizza (only thing on the menu). 

Cinque Terre is a really brilliant place to go with beautiful scenery and picturesque villages. It would be even better if it was warm enough to swim and a few more places were open. If you come in the off season, stock up on food in La Spezia before you get here!

- Joe