Monterosso & the Cinque Terre

day 13 – giorno tredici

This is where Italians go for vacation. We woke up to a beautiful blue sky (clouds over the water but…). Breakfast here wasn’t until 8 so we finally got to sleep in a tad. Waves crashing, bells tolling, the rumble of the train every so often during the day. It’s so peaceful here, especially way up at our hotel where there aren’t crowds of tourists.

Mom and I had a leisurely morning, mostly due to me trying to finish another days blog post. We enjoyed a couple cappuccinos on our beautiful terrace and then went down to have an excellent breakfast, and another cappuccino, of course. By the time we left to start our day it was already 10:30.

We left Monterosso and headed for Vernazza via the trail that connects all five towns. This section is the hardest of the trails but reportedly had great views so we went for it (with our hostess’s encouragement as well). It was a LOT of stairs. Worth it for sure, but we had to take it slow to make sure of our footing. Mom made lots of new friends along the way. We met people from Arkansas, Victoria BC, Florida, Nova Scotia, and a group of people my age from Australia, Canada, and the US.

The trail itself is park land, but on either side it’s private. There was even a cattery along the way! I was astounded at the amount of rock walls, rock stairs, rock bridges, etc. They just never ended.

We finally found Vernazza!

We didn’t do a ton in Vernazza other than walk down to the waterfront and enjoy sitting on the pier for a bit. We ran into three other couples from our group while we were there so it was fun briefly comparing notes. I was hoping to do more of the hike but Mom just wasn’t quite up for it.

Everything so far in the Cinque Terre is straight up eye candy. The beautiful blue water, the bright colored umbrellas and boats, the warm terracotta, yellow and pink buildings, and the variety of greens in the hillsides. It’s just all so picturesque.

From Vernazza, Mom and hopped on a train and went to Manarola, two towns south. Our Airbnb host, Cristina, had recommended we do the hike from Manarola to Corniglia, but again, time and energy were limited, so we just settled for seeing the town. I believe all five towns used to have rivers running down the middle of them with many bridges connecting cross streets, but now the rivers are hidden beneath paved main streets. The towns have suffered greatly due to landslides, but have rebuilt to themselves, likely largely funded by the tourism in this area.

In Manarola, we headed downhill towards the water until we spotted this hole in the wall food spot. The man who owned it was a gregarious guy and it was fun to talk to him for a bit and get his take on tourism. His repertoire/menu has greatly expanded since he started due to tourists varying tastes. Wanting to be more authentic than the typical tourist, Mom and I got a couple of his suggestions and sat on a little bench outside in the sun.

Sustained again, we spotted this path that went way out around the next hill that looked like a great photo point. So we walked up there, took a million more pictures and happened to run into our Australian friends on the way back down.

We’re definitely getting more tired by the day and expecting less of ourselves, so after we felt like we’d seen the town, we hopped a train back to Monterosso. I was confident getting the train south to Manarola but had just a tad bit of doubt when we went to head north. Mom asked a man who only spoke Italian but someone in his family spoke a little English. We conveyed we wanted to go to Monterosso and it was the funniest thing because they went back and forth, saying we needed to be on platform one, no two. Then a couple minutes later he came back and changed his mind. It was cute and I had gotten more sure of myself so I knew they were confused. We got on the right train in the end!

Back in Monterosso, we took our time getting back up to the hotel. We walked the paths along the water and did a little shopping. I still wanted to get in the water but by the time we got back and got changed we didn’t have time before our dinner reservation with Norm, Mariellyn, and Tara.

All this time, Sarah has been giving me heck about wanting to order pesto dishes, but here we are in pesto central, so I finally did it! It was very tasty, but didn’t hold a candle to the fresh-local-handmade pesto from last night. We also tried a couple kind of anchovies and they were much more enjoyable than I thought they’d be. As we were finishing up dinner, it started raining. Thank goodness it held off until then, but between a very full stomach and the rain, my drive to get in the water really diminished. It was dark too, so I just took off my Chacos and walked in to mid calf. Definitely would have been very nice to swim in midday!

The rain got harder as we hurried back up to the hotel and the wind was picking up as well. I’ll be sorry to leave this place in the morning but it’ll definitely be easier if the weather’s shitty!

Time to get repacked and get some zzz’s. Night!