Day #259 - Cinque Terre, Italy

View of Vernazza from high above

View from the final segment into Riomaggiore

Steep cliffs

Kay - mesmorized

Getting started

Initial views

Nice, blue water

Sunday, November 28th

A challenging, but rewarding day today. We headed out of Florence at 7:27am via train to Pisa. We arrived at 8:27am and then took a 9am train to La Spezia, Italy. We arrived here at 9:51am and then took our third and final train to our destination - Monterossa, Italy.

Cinque Terre --- The CinqueTerre is a rugged portion of coast on the Italian Riviera. It's located just north of the city of Pisa, on the western side of the country. There are 5 villages that make up this area: Monterossa (northern-most village), Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore (southern-most village).

Today, we toured this area. Reading through all the literature and travel books concerning Italy -- this is always viewed as one of the hidden treasures. I would concur after my visit today. Exceptional - I would recommend it to all.

The big draw with the Cinque Terre is the hiking trails that connect the 5 villages. These trails all skirt the coastline, as you walk up and down these steep cliffs with dramatic views of the ocean below. In addition to the water, you're walking through vineyards, orange trees, lemon tress, fields, etc --- it's unbelievable scenery.

Only unfortunate thing about today, it was about 30-35 degrees and raining. We were actually told that 3 of the 4 hiking routes were closed. You could take trains from village to village - but we really wanted to hike. We took the train to the northern-most village of Monterossa. The trail was open. We later learned that the path from Monterossa to Vernazza is actually the most difficult section of the course. That it was. It took us 2 hours to walk a distance that was said to be 3km. The trail is 9km in total distance (5-6 miles) - with the first segment of 3km, then 4km, then 1km, and 1km.

I've hiked alot of trails - and this trail in near sleeting conditions was very aggressive. Many steep ascents and descents on these slippery rocks. We were fine as we took our time and secured each footstep. We past only 5 others on our way. 1 gentlemen from the US (Florida) and 2 couples from Sweden. Kay and I made it to Vernazza and then had lunch. We ventured out for our next segment. It seemed like it had gotten 10 degrees colder. The wind had picked up dramatically. The next section was closed.

We decided to take the train to the 3rd town and start on the next segment from Corniglia to Manarola. This segment was closed as well. Slightly bummed that we were unable to walk the full length of the trail - but it made sense. No reason to be walking on these rocks under these conditions.

We were able to walk the last segment - as it was just a relatively flat walking path with nice guardrails. The views were amazing. We took it in and both felt that this is an area to return in the future.

We took the 3 train combination to get back to Florence. I felt really good - like a good day of skiing. We had hiked for over 3 hours on aggressive trails and seen some memorable scenery. We walked around the streets of Florence in our raingear upon our return until we finally called it a day.