Cinque Terre the First and Second

I'm on a walking sciopero.
- Marco, after day two

We've literally been living on the side of mountain for the past couple of days and have had no interweb access of any kind. How have you managed to fill your days without our jaunty commentary?

When we last left you we were in Parma. Now, it may produce delicious cheese but Parma is nicer in theory than in person. We couldn't wait to leave!

On Friday we left Hotel Button early and crossed the Appenine mountains to arrive in the Liguria region of Italy. We came to explore the Cinque Terre.

The Cinque Terre is a group of five towns overlooking the Gulf of Genoa on the Ligurian Sea. The towns are (from West to Southeast): Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore. There is no driving within the villages: the best way to explore this area is to hike from town to town along the various trails, which are part of a national park. If you're tired (or lazy, we're not here to judge) there is also a train, a ferry and a ecologically-friendly bus that will take you from place to place. The towns are very close together: the train journey between the farthest towns takes about 20 minutes.

Worker unrest alert! We learned that on Saturday, starting at 9 pm, the trains in Cinque Terre will be on sciopero (strike). Why are we a magnet for worker discontent?

After arriving and checking into our hotel, we drove to Manarola and parked nearish to the town and walked in. We thought Manarola was Italy's answer to Lunenburg:

Manarola and the other towns are amazing - they seem to just spring directly out of the cliff. You can get really get a sense of how sheer and fragile everything seems to be here from this picture showing the "back end" of Manarola.

From Manarola, we decided to do the easy walk along the Via Dell'Amore from Manarola to Riomaggiore. The path follows the edge of the gulf - the scenery is rugged and beautiful.

Riomaggiore is just as pretty, maybe even more so, than its neighbour Manarola.


We hung out there for a bit, walked back to Manarola and then drove back to our hotel where we did some laundry in the sink (icky but necessary to address a clean underpant crisis). Our hotel is right on the sea. We have a huge room with an enormous balcony (about 12' x 8'). Like everything else here, the view is unbelievable. Look, we made a panaorama of our balconic view for your blogging enjoyment!

We ate dinner at the hotel (delicious although a bit too "interactive" - a whole fish was delivered to the table which we then had to dissect).

Saturday we got up and formed a plan: drive to Manarola and park, train to Monterosso, train to Vernazza, then walk to Corniglia and then walk back to Manarola.

The first part of the plan worked fine.

Monterosso is the most developed of the five towns and the only one into which it is possible to drive. If you want to beach it up, this is the place to be. (Bonus if you can spot the topless lady.)

We got back on the train and got off at Vernazza. More of the amazing scenery that we saw in Manarola and Riomaggiore.

Vernazza is where we picked up the azzuro trial. The first part was straight up, allowing us to get this great shot of Vernazza.

We thought the trail might ease up a bit after the first, near vertical ascent. It didn't. Whereas yesterday we walked the "Path of Love" today we walked the "Death March of Divorce (With an Ugly Custody Battle Thrown In)". The trail was rocky, slippery and only a few feet wide in places. Off the side of the trail often there was nothing but a sheer, 50' drop. Of about a 2 hour slog, 1.5 hours was up-hill. Really. I'm not Grampa Simpson-ing it here. It was hot, slow going. We were basically walking on the edge of a mountain - here is a picture of one of the only flat-ish parts, with trail underlined, to give you an idea.

I sweated through all my clothes. Marco said that post-walk he can now crack walnuts with his butt cheeks. (I don't doubt it - clinical trials pending). Dudes: we worked for these pictures.


Just when we were beginning to lose feeling in our legs... a whisper of civilization! I have never been so happy to see a town in the distance: Corniglia, in all its hill-top glory.

After an exhausted lunch, we decided to take the train back to Manarola. Yes, we totally wimped out but we felt this was prudent since we would need to be able to move our extremities the next day and were already approaching full-body cramp.

Hopefully we can get some sleep tonight - a boy from Riomaggiore married a nice Canadian girl (awww!) and their wedding reception is in our hotel. You know what doesn't get old? The song "Ti Amo." Pure wedding gold.

See you in Florence tomorrow!