Trip to Cinque Terre

Next up we took 3 trains to Cinque Terre (5 towns). They are all along the Meditteranean Sea and built into the hills and up steep paths. It took us awhile to get to our hotel even though the town- Vernazza, was super small because we had to walk up 111 steep steeps where we finally saw a tiny hand written sign and then the note below.

It was so cute! The man showed us to our room which was near the very top of the town with a balcony overlooking the water, a cute 2 story space with a little couch and table. We just hung out on the balcony awhile where the sun came out, we couldn't believe we got to stay here!

Plus we've been getting really blessed with our weather, it had been rainy here all up until the day we arrived.

Then we headed back down to the main street to grab some infamous foccacia and enjoy the sunshine. We also took a walk to the beach that our room overlooked, to get there you walked through a crack in the rocks. It was so refreshing to be away from all the people and city noises.

entrance to the beach

this is from the beach, the balcony you see is where we stayed.

Then we trekked back up and above where we were staying to a bar our hotel owned where we had wine, beer and complimentary caprese. They spoke english well and were so so courteous!

The next morning we got up early to start hiking the towns. We started toward Corniglia. It was a pretty interesting hike, you followed red/white stripes to stay on the trail and climbed tiny steep steps.

When we made it to the end of the Corniglia trail (we were on the blue trail) a man stopped us at a blocked off exit and said all the blue trails were closed and we weren't supposed to be on them and he'd call the police if we were on them again. Oops, guess that's why we didn't see anyone else on that hike. So we wondered around Corniglia and then took the higher, and steeper red trail to Manarola.

some steps we walked up, thank goodness for the trail markers

The red hike got quite intense but finally when we were close to Manarola we started weaving through vineyards and getting great views down to the sea.

There we stopped for some also infamous pesto, because we had no energy and our legs were shaking. YUM it was seriously good.

Then we gave up the hiking because the red trails took a lot longer to get inbetween towns and took the train back to the first town Monterosso. We wandered around until the rain caught up with us and headed back to Vernazza

We ended the night at a small pizza place with a cheeky Italian owner and a carafe of wine.

It was great to get out into what is more of our comfort zone in the middle of our trip. The hiking and trees and spending our nights reading and eating chocolate wafers was really relaxing and serene. But next up Florence!

Istanbul Pt 1 - Pt 2 - Venice if you missed 'em.