Cinque Terre

The Cinque Terre coast
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The rather aptly named Cinque Terre (Five Lands) refers to the five cities of Monterosso, Vernazza,

Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore on the south coast of Liguria region in the north west of Italy. Riomaggiore, the eastern-most village, was where we stayed for three nights.

We skipped Corniglia because there were too many steps. Don't judge us.

The Linguria region is the origin of both pesto and foccacia. It's also famous for anchovies and wine, both of which are delicious.

Elena at Monterosso beach
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The Cinque Terre is absolutely stunning, there's no other way of describing it. The cities are all built into the hillside right at the cliff's edge. All five cities are also joined by hiking trails, some tough and some not so tough but all beautiful. So we've been told, as we did none of them. That's not to say that we didn't see the other cities, its just that we got the ferry or train when we did. Yes, we're lazy.

We planned on going for a kayak but never did. Why? No idea.

Our Cinque Terre visit marked the most connections to Australians we've seen so far. Firstly, we saw more Australian tourists here than anywhere else (total was two before Italy, back in Portugal). That in itself was a shock. Then the weirdness came...

Vernazza
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Walking up from the beach area on the first evening I ran into Kevin Chua, who I went to High School with. Just randomly ran into. On a small coastal town in the north-west of Italy. Random. But that wasn't the end of it, not by far.

The hostel we stayed at put us in an apartment, which was at the top of a 72 stair staircase (and I'm talking steep stairs). We could hear the voices from the streets (at night that consisted mainly of drunken Australians embarassing us all by yelling 'Aussie Aussie Aussie').

Vernazza
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On the second and third nights, we were joined by an Australian couple Mel and Jason. Not only had they previously travelled with a guy I went to school with (William "Winky" Christopher) but they had the flatmates of Monica and Elysia, two of Elena's close friends who moved to the UK last year, until November of 2006. Weird.

Anyway, we checked out Monterosso and Vernazza on the second day. Monterosso was very touristy and was the only resort-like town of the five. We spent a few hours on the beach on deckchairs with an umbrella. It cost us 15€ as it was a private beach... bastards. After that we got the ferry to Vernazza, which instantly became both Elena and my favourite of the five towns. The town is absolutely stunning and doesn't feel THAT touristy, despite being touted the most touristy of the five. We finished off the day by watching the sun set down at the water with some food and a bottle of wine.

Richard eating pesto pasta
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On the third day we checked out

Manarola and Corniglia, the final two towns. Well, we sort of checked out Corniglia. And by sort of, I mean we looked at it from the train station (unlike the other four towns, Corniglia is up on a hill and thus does not have a ferry dock). It's not that we're lazy, its just that there's SOOOOO many steps. I feel tired now just thinking about them. We used the size of the town (population of 25) justified the decision to bypass it. Don't judge us. As we'd decided to skip Corniglia, we thought it best to return to Vernazza for lunch, where we got a three course meal filled with every local dish from pesto to anchovies.

Manarola
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On the third night we went down to the water to watch the sunset again, this time with Mel and Jason. We has a few bottles of wine and, after the sun had set, lay around looking at the stars. That night we saw both our first shooting star (several, in fact) and our first firefly. It was a perfect end to a perfect part of our trip.