Wed 12 Aug – Fri 14 Aug 2015
We left Laura, Stefano and family on Wednesday morning and drove to Riomaggiore in the Cinque Terre. Natalie had booked a hostel here, one of the five villages of the National Park, thinking it was a good point to explore from. We were aware of the car parking situation (very limited, about 30 spaces and only a few free ones) but hoped we would get lucky – and we did! After driving up and down the mountain a few times looking for parking miles away we waited next to the tourist information contemplating where to park (the next town over and pay 20 euros a day, or outside of the National Park and get a train). Many cars were coming and going and hanging about waiting for parking but low and behold Matt spotted a man with a drum heading towards a van. Natalie ran over and asked if they were leaving and they said yes, so she hung out next to the spot while the band packed up and Matt snuck in with the car. We were then promptly confronted by a man who was also waiting for that spot, but for not as long and he didn’t even send his wife and child to stand there and hold it – amateurs! Turns out that area of the car park was free! Great luck!!
We headed down the main street in search of our hostel. We found a little hole in the wall where we were to check in but the actual apartment we were staying in was 208 steps back up the mountainside! Yikes, this was turning into a stressful visit so far. We arrived, albeit out of breath, with pillows in tow and headed out for a bite of lunch (around 3.30pm by then) and to explore the village. We discovered lots of people swimming in the cove so we hiked back up to the hostel to change into our swim suits. We met a nice South African girl, staying in our room, who gave us the low down on hiking the Cinque Terre.
After a swim and lazing about on the rocks we grabbed some dinner at a lovely, over priced, little restaurant. We went back to the hostel, played some cards and went to bed early in order to have an early start for our big hike the next day.
We woke up at 7.30am on Thursday morning and got the train to the first (or last, depending on how you see things) village of Monterosso. We had a cafe latte and croissant to fortify ourselves for the challenging hike ahead, then set off. Note: when ordering a cafe latte in Italy, be sure to include the word cafe, or you may end up with just hot milk! Two hours up hill and down in rising temperatures and we arrived at the next village (drenched in sweat from places we didn’t know sweated!), Vernazza. We filled up our water and had a rest and then headed off towards Corniglia. Another 1.5 hours up and down (mostly up and over as Corniglia is not on the sea) in even hotter sun. We had a lovely lunch overlooking the sea in the town.
The coastal hike from Corniglia to Riomaggiore was closed, however we could have hiked through the vineayrds above but we weren’t sure of the route and we were really exhausted. We had heard that you could actually hike some of it so we headed off towards Manarola but were stopped by a missing bridge. We tried to hike along the beach but that was a dead end too! So we decided to take the train to the next village. We stopped for an ice cream in the next village before getting on a boat to back to our village. We loved the boat ride – it was only 10 minutes but it felt great to get out on the water! We hiked back up to our hostel, put on our swim suits and headed back down to the grocers to get some supper of olives, crackers, squid, sausages, walnut pie and wine in a carton to have a picnic on the rocks and watch the sun set. Despite olive oil spilling all over Natalie’s reusable shopping bag and then on her sun dress it was a lovely way to end a long and rewarding day!
The next morning we checked out and had breakfast at a little cafe over the water and then headed off to our next workaway just an hour north in the northern Tuscan hills.
Sorry for the very descriptive text but we loved the Cinque Terre so much it couldn’t be helped! We very much highly recommend visiting this place (perhaps not in the height of summer if it can be avoided!)
Purple Moose Tales 