So we took an Intercity train to Pisa, then transferred to a slower regional line that took us to Corniglia (pronounced core-NEE-lee-a). It is the middle of the five cities (because 'cinque terre' literally translates to 'five lands'), and probably the best place to stay on just an overnight visit because the first day you can hike up to the northern-most city, then hike to the southern cities on the second day. So when we got off the train, we started walking towards the town. We knew to expect stairs because it was so hilly, but what greeted us was a climb of 398 terra cotta steps. That's something like 33 flights. That was fun! And we got to the top and saw nothing but a road and a little shack, so we picked a direction and started walking. It was Friday afternoon, but it seemed like no one was around. Our friends who had been there before us had said that we should look out for a little old lady hanging out of a window who would give us a good room for a good price. Unfortunately, we didn't see her, so we wandered until we found a place with a big sign that said 'camere' ('rooms'). They charged something pretty reasonable (I think it came to about 28 Euro per person for a three person room). There was a restaurant attached, so we figured we had dinner planned as well.
I don't have a picture of our room, but there was a really nice little courtyard attached to it.
This is the view from our hotel room. It would have been really nice on a sunny day, but that wasn't our luck. There were a lot of vineyards on the hills, which is what you see here (and the sea behind it!).
We set off towards Monterosso, the northern-most city, with the understanding that it was the hardest climb, so we'd get it over with. The paths towards Vernazza was paved pretty well at first with cobblestones, but it was soon to change.
The path started to ascend very quickly, which didn't really surprise me. What was shocking was the never-ceasing ascent. It was very tiring, to say the least.
One nice thing about all those stairs, though, is that they afforded a great view.
Pretty soon the path started to take on a bit more 'personality.' We said goodbye to cobblestones pretty quickly and got used to what were probably the original paths between these towns before the paved roads connecting them today.
As we approached Vernazza, the town between Corniglia and Monterosso, we suddenly started going down! It irked me a bit after having gone up that whole way, but whatever, it was still beautiful.
As we came around the edge of a cliff, we suddenly saw Vernazza, which is a surprisingly pink and lovely village right on the coast.
It took a long descent to finally get into the village. Part of the problem is that while I was taking photographs, I got stuck behind this guy with this stair-climbing motorized wheelbarrow thing that was going really slowly. My irritation was softened, though, by my amazement that such things exist.
And this was an adorable dog that greeted us. I didn't take any pictures of the thousands of cats that inhabit this town, because they were pretty disgusting, for the most part.
We rested for a while in the town because the stairs wore our legs to jelly. Neil and Will eyed a gelato shop, but I went and got a big fluffy piece of focaccia bread at a bakery next door. It was amazing. When Neil and Will came out of the gelato stand, they looked at my bread and their faces fell. So when they were done with their ice cream, they went and got foccaccia.
And hey! More stairs!
I decided that Vernazza is most beautiful upon exiting, at least after taking this picture.
By this photograph and the one before it, you can see that we had to climb more stairs. I grumbled a lot about how we had to go down all those stairs just to have to go back up, but my grumbling was mostly stifled by my panting. It was rough.
The path got nastier. At some points, it was only wide enough for our feet, and the stairs were more like jagged pieces of rock in a semi-random order. But the meanness of the path was seriously outweighed by how beautiful it was most of the time.
After another hour and a half of hiking (not represented with photos because I spent most of my time trying to keep up with two boys without cameras only intent on their destination), we reached Monterosso (literally meaning 'red mountain,' though it wasn't very red when we were there). Here's our first glimpse of it, just as the path turned back to normal.
We were really tired, so we just tried to find some place to sit down, but it had rained a bit while we were up in the mountains, so everything was wet. Instead we decided just to keep moving and wandered around the town exploring for a while. We found this gun turret on the sea that we figured was from World War Two. It was creepily unmarked and just hanging out by the virtual aquarium just up the path.
We also made friends with this huge frog. Neil and Will were more grossed out by it than I was. We probably blinded the poor thing with all the flash photos we took of it, though.
We had arrived around six, so it took us about three and a half hours to get from Corniglia. We stayed in Monterosso until the sun set and decided to take the train home and get dinner at our hotel.
We had spaghetti with pesto sauce for dinner, since pesto was developed in this little corner of the world. It was really amazing. Then we went to our hotel room, watched some trash Italian TV and eventually hit the hay.
We got up the next morning and had cookies and popcorn for breakfast, since that's what I brought as snacks. The hike to Manarola and Riomaggiore, the southern two towns, was supposed to be really easy, so we took our time getting ready. We checked out and set off with our bags back down the stairs. Here's a bit of an idea what they looked like:
The sun still wasn't out, but it was a windier day, which meant more waves. And because we were hiking closer to the water, it made for a really entertaining walk.
Our path was really nice and wide. Aside from the occasional huge puddle, it was a walk in the park compared to the day before. And no, the stairs into the ocean were not part of our journey.
This is the little bit of land that Corniglia sits on. You can see a few buildings dotting the top, but the town faces the other direction for the most part. (And look! Our path even had a railing!)
It only took about 45 minutes to get to Manarola. It was a really small town compared to all the other ones. We stopped for lunch at this little picnic area and ate Nutella sandwiches that were left over from our trip to Pompeii.
The path to Riomaggiore was even nicer than the one to Manarola. It was paved for the most part, and there were little benches along the way. Unfortunately that meant that the path was more crowded, but that didn't really make a difference. It's a good place for graffitists too, apparently.
All the turns in the path were named. This one is my favorite, for obvious reasons.
I'll never understand this business about stairs into the ocean. There would be absolutely not way of docking a boat here and getting in safely...
We decided that this was originally a pirate hang-out, because of little caves like this.
In Riomaggiore, we sat in a cafe that in America would have had a nautical theme, but in Cinque Terre, I think it was just genuine decor; met a dog named Bingy; ate fresh fried calamari; then caught a train back to Pisa and eventually made it back to Florence Saturday night. We were wiped out.
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