Trekking the Five

On our second day in Riomaggiore, we woke up early to begin the Cinque Terre trek, a five hour hike along the rugged coastline that connects all five coastal villages. It was MUCH more difficult than we had expected but we were determined to keep a fairly quick pace to beat th afternoon heat. It felt like most of the path was stairs going up, up, up and then down, down, down due to the rolling cliff side landscape. Our calfs were in a lot of pain but it was encouraging to check off each village on the journey and very rewarding to finish on a sandy beach in Monterosso (village number five!). The views were breathtakingly beautiful.

 

Below is our village in the background, as we began the trek to Manarola (only 20 minutes and on a beautifully paved path called "Lovers Lane").

 

 

We walked through Manarola and then around the village, thinking we were on the right path towards the next village (it was tricky to find the secondary path as the coastal one was closed). Turns out we took some vineyard owners path and had to turn around. Haha and then we decided to skip out on this portion of the trek by taking the train to the next town, Coniglia (by the end of the day, this was a great decision... it would have been way off the coast and 40 minutes uphill steps followed by another hour of hiking).

 

 

Here's Corniglia! We didn't explore much because we wanted to actually get hiking. Side note: Andy bought me this hat for five euros (best deal we could find... exciting!) and I can't get enough of it in the hot sun! It makes such a difference!

 

 

Whew! We survived the ninety minute trek to the fourth village, Vernazza. It was one of our favourites!

 

 

And after the most tiring trek of all, two hours of up and down climbing, we made it to Monterosso and hit th beach!

 

 

After a relaxing couple hours in the sea and on the beach, we trained back to Riomaggorie. We picked up some pizza (our last in Italia) and headed back to our sweet sunset spot (which was empty again!).

 

 

We'll miss you, Italy!!

 

- Julia