Kelly Around the World: Le Cinque Terre

“You may have the universe if I may have Italy ” - Giuseppe Verdi

for those of you who don't know

le cinque terre

are 5 small beach towns

which you can walk to one by one

totaling 8 miles long & est. 3-5 hrs walk

We took a train from Pisa to Riomaggiore (one of the 5 towns in Cinque Terre). When we arrived we went up to the office of the place we were staying and met this little old Italian man who then led us up a alley of rock stairs that were all different heights and widths and winded all the way up at least 100 steps to our little apartment. We were EXHAUSTED from carrying our backpacks up that far, then when I walked in the apartment there was a sign on the wall that said "Please be quite after 11pm, older couple lives above!" I couldn't believe I was tired from the stairs and there were older people who had to go farther up the hill!!

So we put our things down, changed into our swimsuits, and headed to the beach! Riomaggiore is the first of the 5 towns and is a tiny fishing village. We walked down to the water which was lined in restaurants, gelato places, and tiny family owned shops. We walked around the cliff of the town and got to the beach! The water was absolutely perfect!!! We swam for awhile before we walked to the next town.

The 2nd town is called Manarola and its about a 20 minute walk from where we were. The walk is called Via dell' Amore and is the "lovers walk". It was so beautiful, there were THOUSANDS of locks along the trail that couples bring and lock somewhere and throw away the key as a symbol for eternal love. aww! There were also lots of paintings/graffiti at one point of the trail with symbols of love. Manarola was so pretty and seemed to be a little bit more lively than Riomaggiore (as far as tourists). We stayed for about 30 minutes, walked around and looked at the views until we headed for the next town, Corniglia ( about a 40 minute walk) . Corniglia, I'm guessing, is the smallest of the 5. It was basically vacant with very few shops, and mostly housing. We went into a wine/deli shop and picked up some things to have a picnic dinner (olives, a baguette, pesto, salami, 2 local cheeses, and a bottle of wine). We found a gorgeous spot and parked ourselves on the stairs overlooking the Mediterranean for about an hour or so. :)

We weren't able to go to the next town because it had rained the day before so the trail was closed due to mud slides. We decided to take the train back to Riomaggiore. The train is included in the Cinque Terre pass we bought to walk to trails, and can be taken to and from everytown. Once we got back we bought a bottle of wine and sat by the water and people watched before bed.

The next day we were leaving for Florence, but couldn't go without making it to the 5th town, Monteroso (the beach town) so instead of walking for 3-5 hours we took the train and were there in less than 5 minutes. Monteroso was PACKED! There were multiple beaches and lots of hotels along the strip. We found ourselves a nice spot on the beach for a bit until we could see a storm heading. We beat the rain and went back to pack up and we were off to Florence!