The Cinque Terre - Italian For the Most Beautiful Scenery Youll EverSee but You Better Be Willing to Work For It

They say that all the best things in life are those worked hard for.  Is that how it goes? or is it the best things in life are free? now I'm not sure...but we definitely had to pay a good chunk of money to get to this side of the world and see Cinque Terre as well as pay a national park entrance fee once we were there, so not free but it was one of the best things in life!! And we had to work for it, all the amazing views that we saw had to be hiked to. And we only had one full day there...so we had to work HARD and fast.  

Cinque Terre is a beautiful chain on the Italian Riviera with 5 cute and extremely unique cities all on these huge cliffs in a row overlooking the ocean.  A big part of the charm of the cities comes from the lack of corporate development and modern settling.  The cities are all connected through either a small train, boats, or hiking walkways, no cars can fit on the roads between them. 

Our hostel was in the first of the five cities, Riomaggiore.  We stepped off the train and I was amazed at this city! Everything is an uphill climb but the colorful old buildings were so enchanting and then the fact that they overlook this awesome teal water makes it the most beautiful city setting I've ever seen.  All the buildings there are kept the way they've always been, the hostels are a little weird because due to the housing codes they can't do much renovating. So there was definitely no Internet and it was mostly like sleeping in a cave than anything.  

Street outside our hostel

But we had a kitchen so we could make a home cooked meal the first night we got in!  We bought pasta and the BEST hot chocolate mix in the world that we haven't been able to find since! It's seriously thick like pudding and the chocolate is the perfection of European chocolate standards.  Good thing we stocked up on 6 boxes! We made room for it in our bags by throwing away stuff that wasn't as important like all our pants, toothbrushes and underwear. (random thing too, the only other guy in our hostel turned out to be from Costa Mesa and lived about one mile from the house I lived for the last 3 years before we got married- the world just keeps getting smaller)

Who wants somma dis?!

The next day we wanted to do the full tour, hike from City #1 Riomaggiore through all the cities to the last City #5 Monterosso.  The whole thing is supposed to take around six hours if you're just going from one part to another but considering how much we love to stop and take pictures and how many breaks robby needs to catch his breath (jkkkk) we knew it would take much longer!!

The first part of the hike is called "Lovers Walk" and it's across this stretch completely on the edge of the terrace right by the water starting in Riomaggiore and takes you the next city.  At the end there's a bridge that has a ton of locks on it because, like the bridge we found in Slovenia, it's a tradition to put a lock on it and throw away the key so your love lasts forever!  Robby did this walk a few years back with one of his guy friends, not the lock part...i dont think... But he always told me how romantic it was with Jonah then but he was excited to come back one day with his wife.  That's ME!! So we brought a lock and carved our initials in it and were excited to put it on the bridge!

Well we got denied.  Sadly a couple years ago there were some landslides that ruined part of the area and even killed a few people.  Lovers Walk was completely closed off and so were the entire trails from city #1 to #3.  We were so bummed! We did still put our lock on this gate in front of Lovers Walk that everyone else started a trend of doing so we still got to put our love on lock down. Whewww now we can rest easy.

   

Since the trails were closed we had to take the train to city #3 (Corniglia).  You would think less hiking would be a blessing but really the only way to get the awesome views was to do the hikes! Going the train route you definitely couldn't see as much.  So since we couldn't snap the best shots of the first couple cities here are some beautiful ones that others have gotten that we stole and will pretend that we took them and in 20 years we will probably forget that we stole them And really believe that they are our memories.

City 1 - Riomaggiore.  This is the city we stayed in.  The colors!

City #2- Mannerola.  This is the city you'd stumble upon after strolling Lovers Walk.

City #3 Corniglia.  This is where our adventure began and this shot was actually taken by us.  As we hiked toward city 4, Vernazza, we could look back and get some good shots of it! The hikes through the first two cities are actually pretty easy so we started the hiking just as it got a little tough.

More from the hike...the water is sooo pretty!!

Lots of hilly areas but each time you turned a corner and saw a new incredible view it was always worth it! We made it to city #4, Vernazza, which is my favorite! Maybe I'm bias since it's the one we explored the most but check this out!!

The view as you are entering the city from one side

The view from the other side of Vernazza as you're walking to Monterosso! Sooo amazing!!

It was around 2pm by the time we got to Vernazza and once there we walked around the city, got some pizza lunch and strolled!  

We left plenty of time before sunset for the biggest hike to city #5, Monterosso...or so we thought...

Apparently the hike to Monterosso is supposed to take around 2 hours...if you take the shorter coastal route.  However, unbenounced to us there is another, much longer route that basically takes you up to the top of a mountain, then around and down...for a total of about five hours.  Well somehow we got on this trail! And after 1.5 hours of our calves burning excruciatingly from An extremely steep uphill climb that not even "Calf Ripper X" could prepare you for (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YB0GO7Md0eM&feature=youtube_gdata_player)!  we finally saw a sign that made us realize that if we continued on this path it would be another four hours before we reached the fifth city and well after sunset!

So we had to turn around.  I wanted to cry but there was no way either of us was going to continue on what felt like 90 degree climb for any longer only to miss the cool views during the day!  The best we could do now was go back down, find the coastal route and walk as much as we could to see as many views as possible and then catch the train back to the first city.  The other catch was that we had to be back to the first city by 7pm to get our bags because the baggage storage place closed. We had stored them there because we checked out of our hostel and were catching the Midnight train to Rome!  

So we back tracked and then found the coastal route and walked that as far as we could before needing to turn back for our train.  We weren't able to get a great view of Monterosso, the last city, (this is the best I got, still so far away!)

We got some rad shots of Vernazza as we were walking away from it towards Monterosso though. These were some of my favorite view points so I'm sooo glad we finally found our way...

Vernazza behind us!

Yeah I put this picture in again, it's one of my favorites of the whole trip!

Next time we won't be so ambitious and go off without asking for directions although so many times that makes for an even better adventure!! Just not this time...

I loved loved loved Cinque Terre, i think it has been the most beautiful stop on our trip for me because it has amazing natural beauty coupled with some charming architecture which is my favorite mix! The Time crunch, the closures, and the hansel and Gretel stint totally gave me plenty of reasons to come back there! so please invite us if you ever decide to go!