Hiking Day at Cinque Terre

Hello  - today's post is from Cinque Terra National Park. Cinque Terre is comprised of five small villages from north to south: Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia (sounds dirty doesn't it :-), Manarola and Riomaggiore. Our flat is in the village of Riomaggiore over looking the marina. The shot above is from our patio. We can sit and watch the boats coming in and out of the marina, people swimming and listening to the waves as we drift off to sleep.

Now, in one way it is similar to Venice that there are very few cars here but that is because they could never manoeuvre the crowded geography of this area. There are hiking trails that link the five villages, so we checked at the info bureau in the AM and apparently, due to landslides, certain areas of the coastal trail (aka Trail #2 - the Blue Trail) were closed. So we travelled from Riomaggiore to Corniglia by train and started out trek there. We had the option to start in our village but that would have meant a different set of inland trails. This is the hilltop village of Corniglia.

This pic was taken as we were approaching the village of Vernassa. The hike is challenging, reaching an altitude of 250 meters several times over the coarse of the day. Each village means a sharp climb up and a more enjoyable trek down! The trails ranged from flat, dirt trails to spots with barely enough room for more than one person to get by. Lets just say it was challenging when the temperature was in the mid-seventies and we were sweating like monkeys.

But all in all it was a great day, stopping in Vernassa for lunch and continuing on to Monteosso by days end. After 12 kms we jumped a train back to our humble abode in Riomaggiore. We all had lots of steps on our iPhone Health accounts and we certainly appreciated a hot shower and cold beer when we got back home. Tomorrow we are off to Florence although we really hate to leave this amazing apartment and such a beautiful part of the country.