The Cinque Terre region is made up of 5 towns close together: (in order from South to North) Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and Monterosso. You can get to each town by either taking a very short train ride or hike one of the many trails that's available. Since it was getting late, I only really had the opportunity to get some dinner in the closest town to my hostel, Riomaggiore. The hostel I was staying at was kind of ridiculous. It was just situated outside of Riomaggiore, in a town called Biassa, and they only had a certain amount of shuttles going to and from the hostel. The last one of the day was always 9pm, so I had to scarf down my food unless I wanted to hike it back.
Again, with the shuttles, they only had a few leaving in the morning into town and then the next one back wouldn't be until 6pm. Plus, you had to book which shuttle you wanted in advance. So I had to plan out my days pretty carefully if I wanted to make the shuttle back. In the morning the next day, the weather was questionable. The forecast said it would be rain and clouds all day and outside, it was overcast. I debated on what to wear for a bit and eventually settled on wearing jeans. I made a big mistake. The entire day ended up being perfect and I was dripping with sweat for most of it. I hiked from Monterosso to Corniglia on what was considered the easy trail. My expectation was that it was going to be more of a long walk than a hike but I was wrong. Basically between each city, you had to go up before you came back down and that meant a lot of stairs. To make matters worse, the easy trail between Corniglia and Manarola, and Manarola and Riomaggiore was closed so it was only the more difficult ones that you could do. Stupidly enough, I decided to hike the Corniglia to Manarola one as well. Jeans were a very bad choice. I felt like Frodo climbing Mount Doom to destroy the ring. It was all worth it though. The views were stunning and all 5 towns were beautiful to look at from a distance. By Manarola, my legs were jelly so I took the train back to Riomaggiore.
Monterosso
Vernazza
Corniglia
Manarola
Riomaggiore
All 5 towns are pretty similar I would say. There isn't actually a whole lot going on in them other than shops and restaurants. I made sure I got myself a piece of Focaccia along the way as well. So good.
The next day, I made another questionable decision. It was pouring buckets outside and I debated about just staying in for the day or going out. I was limited with flexibility since the shuttles were so infrequent so I had to make a choice. I thought I'll go out and do something I'll remember rather than be lazy. And remember it, I will. I decided to hike it from Levanto, a town north of Monterosso, to Monterosso. When I had got to Levanto, I waited until the rain let up to start the trail. I was only maybe 5 minutes into the hike and it started pouring again. I was immediately drenched and knew there was no going back from this so I pressed on. I was also in my athletic wear this time too so at least it would dry quickly after. This hike was long and the rain rarely eased up. I was one with nature one might say. But one might also say I'm just insane.
When I finally got into Monterosso, I went to take the train back to Riomaggiore and I sat there for a frustrating 2 and a half hours due to delays, because of the weather. I'm sure this is not the first time they've had this type of weather so I would've thought they would be a bit more prepared to handle these situations.
For dinner, I went out to a nearby pizzeria and got some pretty good pizza with pesto and mozzarella. I spent the rest of the night at the hostel with some French Canadians, who were some pretty fun people that taught me some new French words...
I loved Cinque Terre. I only wish the weather had been better the second day. If I lived here, I could eat all the Italian food I wanted, and probably still stay fit.
Next:
Rome
Sorrento
Assisi
Florence
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