Cinque Terre

Thursday, May 31 – Saturday, June 2

On Thursday night we finally arrived at Cinque Terre. The last stretch of the trip and perhaps the place we were looking forward to visit the most. This last part of the trip was also a relaxing one. It was a perfect way to end up the 3 week long vacation before starting my new life here in Munich. We arrived to Monterosso at night after a 2 hour train ride and after having dropped the car in Pisa. Since the ride took place at night we did not see much of the area’s landscape except for some very minor glimpses of the water. Nevertheless, we were as excited to see the water as Christophe Columbus was to see land. The next morning we realzed that once the train gets into this region it goes inside many tunnels as it moves along the coast an through the cliffs, so there was not really much more to see from the train.

Monterosso is one of five villages that make up Cinque Terre or "Five Villages", a region of the Liguria coast on the Italian Mediterranean. Monterosso is the northern most village of the 5. All the villages are small and mainly pedestrians with colorful houses, very narrow streets, lots of small shops, restaurants and cafes and very relaxed tourists. Just by looking at the people who are walking down the streets or sitting down while they drink a Limoncello (a lemon liquor from Italy), you can tell that everyone is at ease, totally stress less and truly enjoying themselves. The towns are connected via different hiking trails along the coast line or other trails that go deeper into the mountains. All of the trails are located in what is called the Cinque Terre National Park. There is also the option to go from town to town by train, bus or boat. The train takes anywhere between 2-5 minutes to go from one town to the next.
On Friday morning we woke up to a thunderstorm. Very similar to the ones we are used to in Miami: with a couple of power outages and momentary interruptions included. Our plan was to hike a couple of the trails so we had to wait for the rain to stop before we could leave the hotel. Around noon, with the ticket to enter the 5Terre National Park in our hands, the map highlighting all of the trails, a bottle of water and a recharged battery for the camera we finally embarked on the first hiking adventure of the day.

Hiking trail

The park has many trails, however there are 4 that are the closest to the coast. These trails take you from one village to the next. The first trail we walked was from Monteroso to Vernazza. It took us about 1 hour and 45 minutes. This first trail is supposed to be the hardest one. You start by going up the mountain through a series of very steep steps that seem endless. But once you are done with this first series of step you just continue on a somewhat straight trail until it is time to start coming down. The views from the top are breathtaking. Whatever I can tell you to describe it will not the place any justice, so I will let you judge for yourself by looking at the pictures we took.

View of Vernazza

Flowers I collected on the way from Monterosso to Vernazza

View of Monterosso from trail --- View of Vernazza from trail

When we got to Vernazza it was time for us to have lunch. We sat down at a place near the water to have some pesto pasta. The pesto sauce comes originally from this region. I had a pesto lasagna that was to die for, with only layers of pasta, cheese, and pesto sauce. After lunch we took the train to Riomaggiore, the southern most village, and just walked around town. From Riomaggiore we walked 20 minutes to the next village: Manarola. From Manarola we walked about 40 minutes to the next village: Corniglia. Every village is as enchanting and colorful as the previous one. All filled with small shops selling arts and crafts from this region. Shops where the owner of the place is the artist himself and is happy and proud to sell and exhibit his or her art to all the tourists that visit them.

By the time we left Corniglia it was getting late and the sun was starting to set so we took the train back to Monterosso to avoid hiking in the mountain while it was dark.

Just before Sunset

On Saturday it rained again in the morning so we just "chilled" in Monterosso until it was time for our train departure to Milan. We had a quiet afternoon in Milan. We just walked the area around the cathedral. We ended the night rather early since we all had to wake up at the crack of dawn to take a train/flight the following morning. And well, you already know how the day went on Sunday when I headed back to Munich.