The Cinque Terre = The Five Lands

We have finally arrived in Italy – I have been excited about Italian pizza and Michael about Italian pasta for pretty much this entire trip!

We decided to stay in La Spezia with the aim of exploring the Cinque Terre. La Spezia is a small town in Northern Italy, mostly used as a Naval base and was a great budget alternative for us to explore the Cinque Terre (as prices within this area are insane!) – more on this later.

After walking 3km with heavy backpacks to catch a 5am train in Nice we arrived pretty exhausted in La Spezia and decided to spend the day exploring this little city and getting our first taste of Italy. We grabbed some focaccias for lunch (wow, Italians do not go easy on the mozzarella) and took a stroll down to the marina (most of the access to the port of restricted due to the Naval base). 

We also walked up a fair amount of steps to get a bird’s eye view of the town and the marina in particular. It’s actually a really beautiful town, surrounded by sea on one side and huge mountains on the other side – I would love to live somewhere with both of these things! We also managed to sneak in some gelato before going home to lie down and do nothing (at this point I couldn’t even remember which day we had got here haha!).

The next day we were ready to go explore the Cinque Terre – something I have been dreaming of for a very long time!

The Cinque Terre (aka The Five Lands) is a UNESCO world heritage site that consists of five small coastal villages located along a 12km stretch of the coast of the Italian Riviera in the Cinque Terre National Park. A train line links each town, as well as many different hiking paths but there are very few roads or cars located within this region and no chain restaurants or hotels either!

We caught the train from La Spezia to Monterosso, the furthest of the five towns, with the aim of spending the day slowly making our way back towards home. 

Montresso is the only town with full car access and is more of a resort style town as it is less isolated then the rest of the five towns. We arrived via train and almost immediately stepped onto a boardwalk with beach views and beautiful water we immediately wanted to dive right into!

Montresso has a beautiful long, ‘sandy’ beach that is mostly covered with umbrellas and beach lounges rented out by private beaches. It has gorgeous beach views and many restaurants are situated to take advantage of this! Although the beach area has a more modern feel the town is lined with old style houses and inland old style restaurants. 

 The only negative we could find was the huge amount of tourists that crowded this town, as it is known for having the only beach of the five villages and car access to many resort like accommodations but hey look how beautiful it is!

Behind Michael you can see the whole stretch of the Montresso beach and town.

I was REALLY excited to hike the paths between all the five towns as I have heard so much about this but unfortunately this coastline was devastated by a huge mudslide in 2011 and 3 of the 4 coastal hiking paths are still inaccessible due to the damage caused – I think they are due to be reopened later this year or early next year. Luckily the coastal hiking path between Montresso and the next village, Vernazza, was still open so we got to do this hike at least!

Home made signs and stunning views of the coast of the Italian Riviera as we trekked along tiny narrow hiking paths!

Although the coastal trail is known as a tourist hike, I would assume because of the amazing coastal views, don’t be fooled, it’s not that easy! We began the hike by going up a set of stairs that would rival the 1000 steps. Every time we thought we were at the top we turned a corner and there were more stairs! Luckily we were rewarded with amazing views of the town of Montresso and the stunning coastline of the Italian Riviera – the ocean looked so blue and inviting!

Looking back towards Montresso from our view along the coastline!

The path slowly began to get a little easier after this but there was definitely still a fair share of ups and downs on this tiny, winding track. 

The above photo shows our view of the Vernazza as we made our way along the coastline!

However, after hiking for about 1.5 hours (lucky we wore runners) we were again lucky to be rewarded by more amazing views, this time of the tiny town of Vernazza! The photo above is actually supposed to show Vernazza in the background but you can't be too fussy when asking strangers to take your photo!

Just a few photos of the incredible view of Vernazza we were lucky to have on our hiking into this small town.

Gorgeous!

This tiny little town is filled with small local restaurants and earthy coloured houses and hangs off the cliffs of the coastline – the view was picturesque! We hiked down into this small town and explored, as the town depends on tourism for its survival it is mainly filled with small restaurants, bars and take away shops. 

The harbor was filled with people exploring and taking everything in, small dingys filled the harbor and the waves broke over the rocks. We were lucky enough to have our first pizza and pasta fest with a view of all of this!

After lunch it was time to move onto the next town – this time we had to catch the train as the hiking trail was closed (much to my disappointment) for reparations (apparently they have spent more than $8 million euro so far to fix this). 

Corniglia is the smallest of the five towns. We arrived at the station and had the option of catching a shuttle into town or walking, we are not that lazy so we decided to walk – turns out there is a reason for the shuttle, the HUGE zig zagging staircase that you have to walk up to in order to get to the hilltop town! Ahhh MORE stairs! I think it took us about 10 minutes to walk up probably about 500 or so stairs (I did start counting but I gave up).

Corniglia is definitely the quietest of all the towns, many of the shops were even closed. We followed the narrow winding streets past a few tiny restaurants and gelato shops to a small look-out point, on the very edge of the coastline; from here we could see all the way to the next small town, Manarola. We spent most of our time in this tiny town just relaxing and enjoying the views as we looked out to sea and along the beautiful Italian Riviera coastline.

As it turns out, Manarola would be our favourite of all the five towns. Once we exited the train station we saw colourful old apartments and buildings lining the tall hills and cliffs surrounding this small village, I love the way Europeans build houses into the sides of hills! 

We walked through the town of Manarola, grabbing a beer and gelato for the road – the whole town is pretty much build on the side of sheer cliffs and mountains that lead down to a tiny harbor which houses boats and has a small (not so safe) area that locals swim in (or maybe crazy tourists?). 

 Michael and I were in awe of the amazing view!

The way the houses are built seemingly on top of each other and on the very edge of the coast makes them look like they are projecting out into the ocean. 

 There was a small walking track that led around the coast and we grabbed a seat here to admire the picturesque view and incredible little town. It was stunning and I think we are really lucky to get the chance to visit such an amazing place.

How perfect does Michael's panorama photo look!?

After this we were pretty much done for the day and made our way back to La Spezia, with plans to visit the last of the Five Lands the following day.

Riomaggiore is the most well-known villages in the Cinque Terre. It is similar to Manorola, in that the houses are built almost on top of each other on the side of steep hills that lead down towards the small villages and port.

The town has a more touristy vibe and has many small take away shops and restaurants selling cheap take away (although it smelt amazing) but there are also many restaurants and cafes surrounding the port, which was filled with small boats and people sunbaking on the rocks.

XXXL pizza anyone?

Another awesome panorama shot from Michael!

After a morning visit to Riomaggiore we headed back to Montresso to spend some time lying on the beach and soaking up some sun! 

We have gotten a really good first impression of Italy – the people seem to be really nice and willing to help despite the fact that we speak zero Italian. They really do speak with their hands, which is highly amusing! That pretty much sums up our two days in the Cinque Terre – we had an amazing time in this beautiful part of the world and were spoilt with beautiful views and delicious (not so healthy) Italian food. 

ps. sorry for the annoying text - I can't figure out how to fix it and it's driving me crazy!!!