La Cinque Terre

The Cinque Terre is a region along the Ligurian coast, and it´s one of the most beautiful areas I have seen.  As the name suggests, it's made up of five fishing villages - these are joined by hiking trails and trains.  I booked my accommodation in Manarola, while Bonnie stayed in Riomaggiore.

I feel like I have discovered a little bit of paradise, and it dawned on me how lucky I am to be doing this trip.  This is exactly the experience I was looking for when I left, to head a bit off the beaten track and find somewhere that isn´t over-run with tour groups and hawkers selling souviners!  I hope it stays that way, as I definitely will be returning.

It's difficult to describe the area and do it justice, so I will try and put some photos up soon.  Think craggy hilltops with vineyards, and beautiful coastal views.

Bonnie and I tackled the trail between the five villages on our first day.  I think we were a bit optimistic about what it would be like, as the first two villages are linked by a lovely 15 minute stroll along Via Dell'amore.  Once we got into the hills though, things got a bit harder going!  We stopped for lunch in the fourth village, Vernazza - but after toying with the idea of some wine with lunch, we decided to save the final leg for the following day.  Instead, we took our bottle of wine down to the beach, put on our bikinis and worked on our tans!  Two older italian women were sitting next to us - one looked at us with our wine, smiled and said "La dolce vita".  Indeed!

We hit the last of the track, between Vernazza and Monte Rosso, the following day.  Very hard going at times, I even had to break out the ipod to keep me motivated!  Absolutely worth every sweaty step though.  The trail took us through terraced vineyards and rocky outcrops with incredible views of the coastline.  When Monte Rosso came into view I almost whooped for joy - it is definitely the more resort-like of the 5 villages and had the nicest beach.  Spent the afternoon there before watching the sunset over the ocean in Manarola...I never want to leave this place but I´m off to Venice tomorrow!