Cinque Terre: Grueling Hike with Frizzante Wine

Manarola, the town we stayed in
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Off we went to the Italian Riviera, to Cinque Terre (“Chink-weh Tay-reh”) the place with  beautiful greenery and water and cute little villages. CT consisted of 5 sleepy fishing villages (Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore). Our hostel was in Manarola up some crazy hill so that was NO FUN to walk to with our big packs. This hostel was a bit like an institution because they had rules of when it was open, lockout hours, 10 minute showers, Nazi book exchange, etc which is because our favorite neighbours to the south pissed the locals off so much that they had to become anal about keeping it peaceful and quiet. Stupid Americans! Otherwise the hostel was very clean and well run with a little kitchen that cooked organic foods! Unfortunately we arrived at the hostel about an hour before the lockout ended so we decided to just sit at a little lookout point outside our hostel since we didn’t want to abandon our packs or lug them around anymore. We killed time by reading a bit, wandering and of course, getting a bit of gelato. CT is famous for their pesto and 5terre wine. That night we ate at our hostel and wandered around our town but it was pretty quiet so we took it easy the first night.

View from our hostel
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Our first full day we went to the beach in Monterosso (good decision, weather-wise) and did lots of tanning, sleeping and reading. Water was really nice (not cold) with lots of waves. We also wandered around the town of Monterosso, which was the biggest town. The lemon festival was going on so there were green and yellow decorations all over the place. After the strenuous day of lounging at the beach we went back to Manarola and had some of CT’s famous pesto and 5terre wine. Very delicious! This restaurant was, of course, recommended by Rick Steves. Back to the hostel early-ish so we could get up early for a day of hiking.

Beach of Monterosso
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Bright and early on the second day, we did the famous 4.5 hour hike between the 5 villages. There was some crazy terrain which included lots of uneven stairs and tight walkways, however no bails by either of us-YAY! It was a hard hike but at least it was a cloudy day so not too hot. We started with the tougher section first so we could relax near the end. The hard parts of the hike were kind of like the crazy hikes in the Rockies, like the Lake Louise teahouse hike. We had a little competition with some Atlanta boys but I think they beat us in the end cuz we stayed too long in some of the villages. The scenery along the hike was gorgeous – on one side there were vineyards and olive groves and on the other, the water and cliff edge. We rewarded ourselves by going back to the same restaurant as the day before and had had lobster linguine (Steph) and seafood spaghetti (me) for 7 Euros which is about $9!! We were very amused with that. We also found out about the tasty goodness of the ‘frizzante’ 5terre wine (sparkling wine) and had two bottles at dinner. After stumbling back to our hostel, we partied by ourselves (with some more 5terre wine) and played some board games like ‘Sorry!’ and ‘Trivial Pursuit’ (I told you our hostel was tame!). We also found a frog outside our hostel and took some pictures of it. (There is a picture that looks like I am stepping on the frog, but contrary to what Steph says, I only touched it with my foot to make it hop.)