Seeing The “Five Lands” Meant More Exercise

A View Of Manorola From The Trail

Sitting In Our Designated Seats In The Tunnel Of Love

The View Of Corniglia From Our Apartment Window

A View Of The Oceanside On Our Way To Vernazza

View Of Monterosso From The Trail's End

I was lucky enough to visit Cinque Terre the last time I traveled to Europe. Kaylin had not yet reveled in its glory, so I knew it was a must see on our journey. Cinque Terre is composed of five towns sprinkled along the Italian Riviera within about a 6-mile stretch. We stayed in the central village of Corniglia, which was kind of nice as it allowed us to break the hike up between two days and spend a little more time in each of the towns. When we arrived at our apartment a gentleman who was in charge of hooking up our stove and refrigerator, and who also spoke zero English greeted us. This seemed to work in our favor, as it seemed every verbal exchange ended with him bringing us something. The first time he brought us beer and wine, and the next he brought us tomatoes from his garden along with olive oil and salt, to which we added some excellent buffalo mozzarella for a tasty caprese. I was afraid to alert him when the hot water didn’t work for the fear that he would turn over the keys to his car.
On the first day, we headed south for the easier trek to Manarola and Riomaggiore. The basic theme for all of the hikes is traversing elevated mountain trails dotted with lemon trees and vineyards, all the while staring down at the gorgeous rocky coastline. Aside from that, each leg bears its own characteristics depending on the town’s specialty and terrain. The one-hour hike to Manarola was probably the most straightforward as the vegetation was somewhat sparse, while the view of the ocean was never obstructed, leaving us with views of the various swimming coves for which the town is known. From there, it is only 20 minutes to Riomaggiore, but this short walk is considered to the most famous as it contains the “walk of love”. At the start of the tunnel, there is a two-person bench with designated seats for “lovers” to sit/have their picture taken. The tunnel is covered with various works of art, the sad thing is that amateur “artists” have pretty much scrawled all over much of it leaving only a few signs of what once was. After walking through the town, we hiked back and ate at the Pizzeria & Foccaceria that would be our base of consumption during our time here.
The next morning we woke up bright and early to tackle the 3-½ hour journey to Vernazza and Monterosso. These hikes were much more hikey, leading to a lot of sweat, turned ankles and stops to take in nature’s beauty. There were points in the hike where the path was merely one-and-a-half feet in width, with nothing but a nice brushy mountainside to cradle the fallen trekker. There were also opportunities for us to taste wild blackberries; at least we thought they were blackberries. Much to our delight, there were no Into The Wild occurrences, as the fruit did prove safely edible. We passed through Vernazza rather quickly as it is considered the upscale town and even the foccacia was out of our range. We eventually made it to Monterosso, which is the hub for the collective. It is also the town with the most accessible and plentiful beachfront. After walking through the town, which included a search for some amazing looking caprese that turned out to be futile, we decided to settle down on a private beach to bask in the sun and take a dip in the uber salty Mediterranean Ocean. We finished our stay in Cinque Terre by going on some self-led vacation home hunting; unfortunately there wasn’t anything in our budget of free and the owners were not willing to barter for bad jokes. Oh well, we will just hold onto our memories until we make another visit.

Mark and Kaylin