Cinque Terre, Italy - Day 15 - Boots on the Loose

So we began what would turn out to be over 8 hours of train rides to get from Bologne to Cinque Terre (due to a strike, and involved us going all the way back up to Milan again). Got off the train at around 9pm or so to old Mama Rossa offering us a place. We were hungry and tired enough to take it. Place turned out to be kinda dirty and not that great so we left the next morning to go to Manarolla (Mama Rossa’s was in Riomaggiore). Cinque Terre looks like this:

– Genoa (Not part of Cinque Terre)

– Monterossa
– Vernazza
– Corniglia
– Manarolla
– Riomaggiore

– La Spezia (Also not part of Cinque Terre)

Each little town is somewhere around an hour to 2 to walk between them (or 10 minutes to take the train). Upon getting to Manarolla the hostel was full, so we found a good little B and B across the road for roughly the same price. First day we walked from Manarolla up through Corniglia and to Vernazza. Took around 4 hours to do. Stunning scenery included beautiful ocean views, neat old stone walls surrounding paths, terraced hillsides for farming between towns, as well as towns themselves, olive tree orchards, neat old castles, etc, etc. Pretty busy walkway; forced to follow an irritating group of school kids a lot of the way. Can’t imagine what high season must be like.

We were planning on finishing the walk to Monterossa but took a wrong turn and ended up on a mountain side way above the path. After getting all the way back to the town we were pretty tired and so said screw it, had a few drinks and took the train back to Manarolla.

By this point we hadn’t really met a lot of other people, so we decided to go to a Bar that night that we had heard was good (down in Riomaggiore). On the train we were waiting for the stop (only 1 away) but when the train stopped we were still in the tunnel. So we stood there waiting and just as we realized it was actually only our car still in the tunnel, the train started moving and off we went to Spezia on yet another train adventure.

Bar was good. It’s different though now that we’re older. Not in the sense that we’re too old for the bar, just that a lot of backpackers are in their early 20’s, and the standard ‘Where are you from’, ‘Where are you going’, ‘We call it soccer instead of football’ crap is kinda old now. But in with it all, there will always be some cool people and I do look forward to finding them and meeting them (especially off the backpacker routes in Africa).

Next day we woke up and decided that since the rain had stopped, we had better go finish the hike between Vernazzia and Monterossa. So we did; not only was it likely the best/most challenging section but we can now say we hiked the whole thing. As we finished the last stretch, the sun broke thru the clouds, there layed a beautiful beach, and a nice patio overlooking everything where they sold ice cold Coronas. We bought 3 beer to go down to the beach with, and when we said the usual ‘Grattsia, ciao’ to the guy, he said ‘Oh you will be back’ (Think we came back 4 times in total).

That night back out front of our place Jamie and I were hacking (yeah that’s right… old school style) when a girl came up and asked if we were interested in a bag of meat. She was intending on cooking it at the hostel but they wouldn’t let them so we invited them to use our kitchen. Turned out to be nice girls (named Nikki and Jen) who offered to cook for us too so the 5 of us hung out for the night (and the next night too!)

Next morning Jamie took a train down to Naples and Jen and I are heading to Pisa then Florence (since Jamie’s already been there… we will meet him again when we get down south). Both Jen and I are feeling the same: we have to go to Florence and Rome but neither of us feel like dealing with all the crap that will come with it. Most people we talk to enjoyed both places, but we just don’t enjoy the big cities as much (and all the tourists!). Apparently it will take a couple hours to wait thru the line to see the Statue of David. Perhaps we’ll skip it.