Journey to Cinque Terre
We actually got out of the house by 10:30am which is pretty good after a string of late nights. It took us almost 3 hours before we got to our destination: Cinque Terre. This is now a national park, the smallest but most populated with about 4,000 residents that live in 5 different villages built on the seashore over the past 1000 years, so it must be worth a visit.A half hour to get to La Spezia where the train station is, a half hour to find parking, a half hour to walk across La Spezia to the train station, a half hour buying tickets, a half hour carb-loading at McD's, half hour riding on the train to the 3rd village of Corniglia & another half hour taking the bus from the train station up the hill to Cornigilia... was that one too many half hours? Well, we finally made it!
Parking the van was more of a challenge than usual. Note: next time we come (ha ha), we'll stay on the north end in Levanto where we read it's less crowded & has big parking lots. ...
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| a hearty breakfast of ham & eggs before a day at Cinque Terre |
Cinque Terre
Cool & colorful. In Corniglia, we wandered around for a bit before we found someone who knew where the lookout was. The lookout wasn't as panoramic as described in the guidebook, but you could look back on the the 2nd village (Manarola) perched on the edge of the land jutting out in the sea. We then trekked the 2 miles from Corniglia to the 4th village (Vernazza) along the trail taking us about 90 minutes. It rained a bit during the hike but we quickly dried off when the sun came out again. We passed 2 locals playing a saxophone & an accordion on the trail...Vernazza is known to be the most picturesque of the 5 villages & was a lot busier than Corniglia ...
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| approaching Vernazza |
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| all the girls in front of the church in Vernazza |
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| focaccia stop |
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| inside the focacceriia |
more pics when available...
Such a famous string of coastal villages (towns). Really lovely!
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