Beautiful Cinque Terre...
This area of Italy (kind of on top of the "boot" on the coast) remained undiscovered to tourists until recent decades. Thanks to Rick Steves' guidebooks, though, millions of visitors have come to this picturesque slice of Italy in the past few years. This is truly a magnificent corner consisting of five villages (hence the name "Cinque Terre")--Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corgnilia, Manarola and Riomaggiore.
We took a train from Pisa to Monterosso, the most northern town, as we were staying there. All trains pass La Spezia, a bigger town-entrance to the region. I just like how Italian it sounds:).
From La Spetzia to Monterosso, the train goes through a dozen of tunnels, carving its way through the mountains along the coast. It's an amazing Italian view with a genuine charm.
We managed to not miss the station where had to get off, somehow managed to not forget any of our suitcases or children on the train and found our apartment by following very detailed instructions from the apartment owner. He, himself, couldn't be there because of an unexpected hospital appointment in Milan, so he said he'd leave the key under the entrance rug--thank goodness it was there. "Help yourselves and leave the money for rent in an envelope when you leave," he said.
It took us about 15 minutes to walk to our apartment with our suitcases. We were huffing and puffing and trying not to die of heat! hahaha We were so not used to the sun any more and wearing jackets to save packing space did not help. Finally, we reached the place, ditched the bags and jackets and ran to the beach after grabbing some pizza for a quick lunch.
Umm...Italian sandy pizza-still eatable.
We spent an hour on the beach, but then kids started complaining they were soooooo hot. Seriously...
I haven't mastered the art of walking gracefully on these pebbles!!! How did I survive the beaches in the Crimea in my childhood?? That's all they had where we vacationed most of the time--pebbles.
"Fine! We'll get some gelato!". And it was good...
But we had to hurry. We only had a few hours to see a couple more villages. Trains go about every 30-60 minutes from the village stations. But sometimes timing is tricky. We left Monterosso and took a 20 minute train to...
...Manarola.
This is one of those postcard views. It was indeed gorgeous!
Population 800. This village was first mentioned in 1261 and now is registered as one of the most beautiful villages in Italy.
Just breathing in the atmosphere of the coast.
A rare hug from Katya.
And different shades of blue.
We had some time to spare in Manarola waiting for the train to Vernazza, so we walked to the back of the village where it meets the mountainous path going to Corgnilia (the village that is set in the mountains). I wish we had a longer stay in the area to go hiking on the path that goes through all five towns. Mark convinced Robert that they should try to go as high as they could on the path that started in Manarola. Surprisingly Mark didn't want to stop:)) but they had to go back down because of the train coming soon.
It was dinner time when we arrived to Vernazza. We walked a few meters to Il Pirate restaurant, recommended by Rick Steves. It was quite empty as it was only 6 pm, so the owners could devote their full attention to us. The owners are quite interesting themselves--they are twins from Sicily! They recommended some of the traditional dishes to us like pesto gnocchi and pickled anchovies. Both were delicious!
We also tried their traditional cannoli! They were fantastic too. By the way, these are NOT their cannoli, these are from Sicily, but I wanted to show you what they look like.
After dinner, we hurried to the beach of Vernazza to catch the sunset.
Vernazza suffered greatly from 2011 flash floods that destroyed much of the region. It was horrific to watch some of the youtube videos. In fact, many trails that are so popular with tourists along the coast have been closed for several years now because of being unsafe.
These crazy kids stood as close as they could to the water trying to remain dry...right.
We got home without any adventures, despite taking the train without a ticket (the ticket office in Vernazza was closed by 8 pm and we didn't know what else to do:)). In the morning, we walked down from our apartment to the main piazza of Monterosso in search of some breakfast. Kids ran around crazy for a bit.
And then we literally followed my nose to a bakery. Without speaking any Italian, I figured out how to ask a local passing by about the smell in the air-haha. She knew exactly where to send us for some sweet treats and croissants.
Waiting for mama to give us some food.
And back at the beach before packing up our suitcases again. Still working on that synchronized jump, guys.
Our hope was to take a boat ride along the coast to view all five towns from the waterside, but the first day that the boat was running was the day that we had to be leaving for Genoa at 10:40 am. There was no way for us to do both--do the boat ride and get to the cruise on time. We had to pick the cruise, of course.
After a VERY sunny morning, we were off on the train to Genoa, excited for the first cruise of our lives!
Good night,
Lyana
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