Cinque Terre

I had been waiting for this day ever since I realized the cruise stop labeled "Florence" is actually about 2.5 hrs from Florence but right next to Cinque Terre. So, this will be a long one. Get some coffee.

A view from Riomaggiori

Cinque Terre is a collection of 5 Italian towns built into the cliffs overlooking the ocean. They are connected by hiking paths, but we're in a heatwave here and we wouldn't have had enough time to hike them all. They are also connected by a train service with trains coming more or less every 20 minutes. One day pass lets you get on any number of trains that day, and also into public restrooms for free, as well as the shuttle service up a steep cliff to one of the towns. From west to east the towns are: Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiori. We were at the very east end, so we did the towns starting with Riomaggiori.

The "too long, didn't read" version is - Cinque Terre is almost unbelievably beautiful, but also unbelievably crowded. We logged 7.3 miles of walking, 16,783 steps and 56 flights of stairs climbed according to my Apple watch. Our guide said that up until about 3 weeks ago, it was not crowded, but the crowds have descended upon Cinque Terre now and will last until mid-September. I would highly recommend our guide - she was really wonderful.

Gorgeous but look at the solid line of people on the path
heading up the hill.

 

Now for the long version!

We hired a private guide to take us around Cinque Terre since we only have a set number of hours in port. I would truly love to come back to Cinque Terre and hike the entire route and stay in the area for a few days. But I am very glad that we stopped here on the cruise, and hiring a private guide was for sure the way to maximize the experience.

getting into our hired ride

We got off the ship as soon as the gangway opened and were met at the cruise terminal by our guide, Anna, and driver, Simone. Simone drove us to the first of the Cinque Terre towns, Riomaggiore. From the place he dropped us off we walked basically straight downhill for half a mile.  The towns are each comprised of brightly colored houses built into the rock, all touching each other on 2 sides. They are situated on windy cobblestone roads with the cross streets largely being narrow staircase alleyways. The towns have between 500-1500 residents. On days like today, the "population" must be ten times that. I imagine that once the tourists leave for the day, the residents exhale. I can't imagine how their lives have changed with the surging popularity of Cinque Terre.

us with our guide, Anna.

As a side note, all of Cinque Terre smells absolutely heavenly right now. Intoxicatingly good. There is jasmine blooming everywhere you look. There are a million flowers of all different kinds, both wild and in window boxes and planters. There is more bougainvillea than I have ever seen in my life. Every color, and pretty much everywhere you look.

This is looking down a pathway
that farmers use to get to their
crops.

Also as background information, they farm these steep cliffs. They have terraced a huge number of acres and grow primarily grapes - they are vineyards. There are little paths between rows of grapes with stairways to get up and down. Since this must be painstakingly exhausting, they also invented a little monorail train that farmers use to get to their crops. I apparently found this agriculture on cliff sides fascinating because almost all of my pictures show the grape vines.

A hillside in Cinque Terre, you can see some of the
terraced grapevines behind the buildings.

Back to the first town, Riomaggiori, after we were dropped off we wove our way down to the church, which Anna explained has elements of gothic and baroque architecture and took us inside to explain some of the differences. Then we walked over to some sea side vantage points to admire the beauty of the other towns in the distance. Each town has a few churches and along the walking paths you will frequently encounter different altars. We also saw each town's cemetery, from a distance. They are way up on the hill and look like a set of drawers? I'm curious to read more about them.

A beautiful view approaching an ocean vista
in Riomaggiori

St. John the Baptist Church
with gothic and baroque styles.

A typical street.

We then took a long walking tunnel under the old city to the train station where we boarded the train to Manarola.

On the train to Manarola! The trains were quite nice.

Our guide Anna leading us through
a public "road" between grapevines.

In Manarola, we walked down to the pier where we found lots and lots of tourists swimming and entrepreneurial spirits looking to give tourists boat rides, rent kayaks, take them diving, etc. It was bustling down towards the pier. Instead of doing the touristy vista walk, we opted to do the harder, steeper, but so beautiful and interesting walk up into the grape vines. Using public "roads" (paths is a better route!) we wound our way up into the agricultural area where we saw not only grape vines but fig trees, olive trees, orange trees, lemon trees, an artichoke, a few types of squash, and lots and lots and lots of grapes. It is almost harvest time, so we got to see the grapes pretty close to ripe. The vistas from up there were really gorgeous.

Char was a real trooper. Her
Osgood Schlatters was really bad
but she trekked on with a smile.
And help from her sister.

The pathway dropped us off at a church that looked exactly like the church in Riomaggiori. We snuck in to both get a break from the searing heat and blazing sun and also to peek at another really old and gorgeous church. I can't get enough of old churches.

Church in Manarolo

Grapes almost ready for harvest

From this point we decided it was getting time to think about lunch. These towns are pretty small, so Anna suggested we head to the farthest west town, Monterosso, which is the biggest and has the most to offer food-wise. We went to the train station and waited (and waited!) for the train. By the time it came there was a big crowd on the platform including a few tour groups. The train came and let the passengers off but then when everyone was boarding it kept trying to close the doors. I ended up pushing Charlotte and Elisabeth onto a completely crowded train and Doug and I squeezed in behind them. It was a little scary, but felt very Italian :)

Lunch!

The towns are ~3-5 mins apart by train, so we were at Monterosso in less than 10 minutes. It was jam packed with hungry tourists by this point. Anna took us to a place that was about a 15 min walk, but had air conditioned seating and was a tiny bit off the beaten path. It was fantastic. We all had a chance to sample 3 different types of bruschetta and then Doug got lasagna, I had spaghetti bolognese, and the girls each had a dish typical of this area - a pasta called "trofie" which is basically like a thick, 3 inch long piece of spaghetti that someone twisted while it was still uncooked paired with pesto which is a specialty of this region. Everyone agreed that the trofie with pesto was the best dish.

A view from the high path on the way back to Veranazza

Gelato!

After lunch we wandered some of the neighborhood streets of Monterosso which was perfect because there were zero other tourists on them. We wound our way back to the train station to go to Veranazza where Anna promised we would find the best gelato. The train was much less dramatic this go-round and we got to Veranazza relatively quickly. Veranazza is pretty tiny with just one road that goes down to the ocean. Your gelato choices are essentially the one on the right or the one on the left. We chose the one on the right. I had raspberry, E had strawberry, and C had one scoop of each. It was delicious as promised.

By this point we were all essentially dead, with the temperature around 89 degrees and the sun unrelenting. We had done 4 of the 5 towns and debated just skipping the 5th town of Corniglia. Corniglia is the smallest of the towns and not easily accessible from the train station. You either take 389 stairs up a steep hill, or you wait for a shuttle bus. We had about an hour until we needed to meet our driver to go back. It was really really tempting to skip Corniglia, but the transportation gods worked in our favor and we got on a train quickly, so we decided to round out all 5 in one day.

Through some shifty business in which I think our family of 4 plus Anna cut some people in line, we got on the shuttle bus that was waiting there when the train arrived, and were the last people to do so. Next shuttle.... 20 mins. I felt a little guilty, but I'm also not totally sure we cut in line. Anyway, a 10 min drive up the hill later and there we were in our 5th and final little town. Corniglia ended up being one of my favorites because it was not crowded and had absolutely spectacular high up views of the coast and the other towns. It was also really small so it didn't take us long to see what we wanted to see and then get back in time to meet our driver. We missed a shuttle bus so opted to take the steps down, which wasn't so onerous. Then we had to wait 20 mins in the blazing sun for a train, so we were a little cranky.

Gorgeous view from Corniglia

The train ride back to Riomaggiori was maybe 10 mins and then we had the formidable task of climbing up the hill to where we could meet our driver. It was about 8 minutes of pretty steep hill, then 5 minutes of OMG WHAT IN THE WORLD WERE WE THINKING steep hill. We were all sweaty and gross and thirsty and out of breath..... and really happy. The girls loved this day as did Doug and I. Anna was a fantastic guide for us. She is very smart and has a few different careers under her belt. The back of her t-shirt said "being creative isn't a hobby, its a way of life," so obviously she and I got along well. She's fluent in 4 languages and shifts between them with crazy ease. I tend to ask a lot of questions, some of which are perhaps off the wall, but Anna answered all of our questions with fantastic history and context. We were sad to say goodbye, but I hope to one day go visit her town of Carerra (the marble!) and get a tour from her again.

Family picture atop Corniglia

We headed back to the La Spezia cruise terminal, got back on the Oasis, had dinner, and then Elisabeth, Doug and I had a long soak in the hot tub to ease our muscles. Charlotte went to play with her friends in the kids' club. We all had second dessert and now we're heading off to sleep in preparation for an early departure tomorrow to Rome!!

Beautiful bougainvillea on the train platform

I can't wait to one day hike all of Cinque Terre and spend some more time in this crazy beautiful region.

A beautiful view from Riomaggiori

Another view from Riomaggiori

More grapes

artichoke

A door in Monterosso

Starting the long path down from Corniglia

Dinner selfie!

Gorgeous flowers everywhere.