Saturday, October 1st, 2011: Cinque Terre
On Saturday four of us decided to take a break from work and head down to the Cinque Terre for the day. On the train there, I had one more use on my Eurail Pass I got from with my parents in August... so I wrote the date on the pass, September 31st(right?). Turns out there is no September 31st. Who knew. So the guy was trying to tell me that September 31st was yesterday.. with our communication barrier I was fighting with him saying no, this is today. Apparently we were both wrong. I think he finally realized what happened, so he only charged me 10 euros as opposed to 50. Regardless, I wasn't very happy at this point.
When we got to the first town, my mood didn't really improve at first(Riomaggiore). The town was PACKED with tourists. We took a few snapshots of the town the unbelievably clear blue water, and moved on to the next town(Manarola). The hike between these two towns was by far the easiest. It was paved the whole way and maybe took 20 minutes reach the end. Once we got there, we learned that the trail to the next town was closed due to a landslide. You were able to walk up the trail a little ways so we did that to get the good view of the town. Along this short path, there were a group of Americans jumping off the cliff and swimming in the water below... It looked like soo much fun! If only I brought my suit with me. Maybe in Greece next week? When we went back to Manarola(the second town) we were faced with the dilema.. .take the train to the next town, or hike around the landslide on a trail that goes through the orchards and up the cliff. Marissa, one of the girls I was with, said "well we did come here to walk"... apparently we didn't know how much walking though!
On Saturday four of us decided to take a break from work and head down to the Cinque Terre for the day. On the train there, I had one more use on my Eurail Pass I got from with my parents in August... so I wrote the date on the pass, September 31st(right?). Turns out there is no September 31st. Who knew. So the guy was trying to tell me that September 31st was yesterday.. with our communication barrier I was fighting with him saying no, this is today. Apparently we were both wrong. I think he finally realized what happened, so he only charged me 10 euros as opposed to 50. Regardless, I wasn't very happy at this point.
When we got to the first town, my mood didn't really improve at first(Riomaggiore). The town was PACKED with tourists. We took a few snapshots of the town the unbelievably clear blue water, and moved on to the next town(Manarola). The hike between these two towns was by far the easiest. It was paved the whole way and maybe took 20 minutes reach the end. Once we got there, we learned that the trail to the next town was closed due to a landslide. You were able to walk up the trail a little ways so we did that to get the good view of the town. Along this short path, there were a group of Americans jumping off the cliff and swimming in the water below... It looked like soo much fun! If only I brought my suit with me. Maybe in Greece next week? When we went back to Manarola(the second town) we were faced with the dilema.. .take the train to the next town, or hike around the landslide on a trail that goes through the orchards and up the cliff. Marissa, one of the girls I was with, said "well we did come here to walk"... apparently we didn't know how much walking though!
blue water in Riomaggiore
Riomaggiore
ManarolaWhen we went back to Manarola(the second town) we were faced with the dilema.. .take the train to the next town, or hike around the landslide on a trail that goes through the vineyards and up the cliff. Marissa, one of the girls I was with, said "well we did come here to walk"... but we didn't know how much walking! We started climbing the stairs/hill, and don't get me wrong... the view kept getting better and better, however, we kept waiting for the peak of the hill to come around the next corner.. and it never came(well it did eventually). Once we got to the top, after countless grape vineyards, stairs, and narrow paths along the cliff, the view was AMAZiNG! You can't even begin to describe it to someone and pictures just don't do it justice. We stood at the top to enjoy the view for a few minutes before continuing our journey to Corniglia(the third town). Along this same path we ran into a couple, and I noticed the man was wearing a Cincinnati Reds hat, and after asking them, found out they were from Cincinnati. What are the chances that in the middle of a hike in Italy I would run into someone from Cincinnati? We finally made it to the town of Corniglia, up on a cliff, where we stopped for a late lunch(around 3pm).
at the top of our hike between Manarola and Corniglia(the detour path)
Corniglia in the distanceOur hike to Vernazza was not nearly as tough as the last hike. We reached Vernazza around 5:30, and realized that we probably were not going to make our 6:15 train back to Genoa that we originally wanted to take, but we still wanted to make the 7:15 if we could, so we didn't spend much time in Vernazza before heading on. We quickly looked around(which was a very beautiful town), and found the next trail to Monterossa(the fifth and final town of the Cinque Terre).
Vernazza
VernazzaOnce again, the second hike(our little detour through the vineyards) we took made this path seem like a piece of cake, even though it is supposed to be the hardest of the four trails. It was 7:15 before we knew it and the sun was setting. We had missed our train again, so we decided to take our time getting back, and get the 8:15 train. We stopped for some gelato and a diet coke, which was much needed at this point, before going to the train station in Monterosso to get our tickets. We were all so tired that everything was funny at this point, so we had an entertaining ride back to Genoa. Once we got back to the Villa, where everyone else had been working all day, they didn't understand/appreciate our good moods, so being exhausted we all got a much needed shower and went straight to bed. All in all, it was a pretty good day.
looking back at Vernazza
sunset in Monterossa
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