I spent my weekend traveling through the five towns of Cinque Terre (cinque literally means five) with one of my roommates and another friend from SAI.
Cinque Terre is a group of five small towns connected by hiking trails and a train system. It has gained a lot of popularity as a tourist location in the past few decades, and everyone there is very welcoming. I stayed in the furthest town called Monterosso, which after exploring the other towns was definitely my favorite with a cute town as well as a small beach, which was gorgeous. Cinque Terra is further north than Rome along the western coast. It took about four hours by train, which wasn’t bad at all! It is called the Italian Riviera and there are few places I have seen as beautiful as this. The closest thing I can find to compare Cinque Terra to is Bermuda with beautiful blue water and lots of rocks and cliffs. I was amazed with this place from the moment I got off the train at Monterosso. I forgot my camera at my apartment in Rome, so thank my lovely roommate Ellyn Domanico for providing me with the pictures for this post.
Friday
I arrived Friday around lunchtime and got lunch right away. When I said Cinque Terre is the land of focaccia and pesto I was not joking. Focaccia originates in the area surrounding and including Cinque Terre and pesto was first introduced in Cinque Terre. So, obviously eating became a large part of my weekend! I got a basic slice of pizza for my lunch when I arrived, or so I thought. Basic is nowhere near the description of the pizza in Cinque Terre; pizza made with focaccia bread may be one of my new favorite foods. It is absolutely delicious! After getting lunch, we settled into our hotel room and sat for a while to let our food digest a bit before hiking.
Like I said earlier, we could take the trains through the towns or hike between them. The hikes range from difficulty levels of 1 – 5 with the hike between Monterosso and the nearest town Vernazza being the level 5 hike, so we wanted to begin with this hike. It was definitely a difficult hike with a very steep incline and a pretty far distance. We all felt quite accomplished when we made our way from Monterosso to Vernazza. Vernazza was a bit smaller of a town but, like Monterosso, it also had a small beach area with access to the sea. It was a bit overcast that day so none of us were very interested in going in the water. We just were happy to have finished the hike. Since we were already tired from traveling and hiking, we went back to Monterosso for dinner. It was a very good dinner and we ordered the locally made wine: white wine, my favorite. I was very pleased :)
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| View of Monterosso from the hiking trail |
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| Tara, Ellyn, and I nearing the end of our hike! |
Saturday
Unfortunately, it rained very hard on Friday night so one of the trails was closed. However we were still able take the train to Vernazza and hike to the next town Corniglia, which was the level 4 hike, definitely still difficult. We ate lunch in Corniglia, but it was a smaller town and on top of the mountain so unlike the first two, we were nowhere near the water (we wore our bathing suits just in case, though). Since the trail between Corniglia and the next town Monorola was closed, we took the train to it. Monorola is another larger town with a large number of things to do and even has vineyards along the mountainside. We spent a good deal of time in Monorola since we needed a bit of a break from walking and really liked the town. After spending time in Monorola we ventured to the last town Riomaggiore. The “trail” between Monorola and Riomaggiore was a paved road called Via dell’Amore.
This road was said to be the road that lovers traveled if they lived in the separate towns of Monorola and Riomaggiore. The road is filled with locks along the gates and fences left by couples. It is actually really precious and beautiful, and I am not at all a romantic. Alongside the road, there is graffiti on the walls of love as well. It was definitely a very romantic atmosphere, maybe I’ll go back later on in life ;)
Once we reached Riomaggiore, we were afraid to was going to rain again so, we decided to head back to Monorola by the train. We ate dinner in Monorola where I got pesto lasagna. Now, I love lasagna already, but pesto lasagna is absolutely fantastic. Remember, pesto originates in Cinque Terre so it was completely amazing!
Now if I have kept your attention for this whole post, I am very surprised at your focus!
Sunday
Since we had to pay for train tickets and trail passes, we decided to have a lazy Sunday, a very lazy Sunday. We spent the day at the beach and although it was cold, I couldn’t help but just marvel at how amazing of a place Cinque Terre is. I was sad to leave but actually very happy to come home. Home sweet Rome.
I don’t know if I’ll ever have a time in my life where I am completely free to explore the world like I have now, and I definitely am so excited to take advantage of this opportunity! There is so much left for me this semester and I can’t wait to experience it all.
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