Italy 2007 – Cinque Terre (Part II)
At about 11 AM on Monday, Heather and I were finally ready to start hiking. As I mentioned before, our plan was to go from Vernazza to Riomaggiore with short stops in Corniglia and Manarola.
The climb out of Vernazza is a steep one – endless flights of stairs culminating above the castle. Along the way, you pass a couple of restaurants, including one pretty high on the hill. Our speculation on how supplies were brought up were answered when we saw what could best be described as a ‘motorized tank wagon’. Any supplies would be loaded on board, then the ‘motorized tank wagon’ would noisily crawl its way up the stairs.
Vernazza from the trail to Corniglia
The walk to Corniglia was a very pleasant one – the weather was in the high 50s and overcast. That’s good hiking weather – you don’t boil or freeze. Along the way, we passed though numerous olive tree groves, vineyards, and stands of citrus trees. Being November, about all we saw still on the tree were fresh lemons and oranges. Unfortunately, they were all just out of reach.
Heather hiking through the olive groves
In about 90 minutes, we descended in to Corniglia – the one town that isn’t down on the water. Of all the towns, Corniglia seems to be the quietest of the five. We strolled through town and took a few pictures at a lookout over the sea before getting some lunch at a cafe’. Of course, we arrived right in the middle of the afternoon siesta, so our selections were very limited. Our sandwiches turned out to be excellent, and we wolfed them down along with some gelato (of course) before leaving town.
The 45-minute walk from Corniglia to Manarola is the least interesting of the hikes in Cinque Terre. You start by walking down several hundred stairs to get down to the train station, then you pass rows of ramshackle sea cottages that are boarded up and/or being torn down. It’s not very scenic. Finally, you come around a point and pass the cemetery in Manarola as you descend in to town.
The view of Manarola from the town cemetery
We were a little worried because we took longer than anticipated to get to Manarola. Fortunately, Mom and William were waiting down by the harbor for us – and William exploded with glee when he saw us. We spent a few moments touring the incredibly scenic cemetary (really!) and the harborside before setting off for Riomaggiore with mom & William.
Surprisingly, we actually got stopped on the trail to Riomaggiore to check our park pass. Since it was off-season, we hadn’t seen any park rangers checking our passes. Fortunately, we had ‘em. The walk to Riomaggiore is just a stroll along a paved trail – but still very scenic. The high point is a stone covered walk to prevent against falling stones.
The Via del Amore’ between Manarola and Riomaggiore
We arrived in Riomaggiore late afternoon with just enough time to take a stroll around town with Rick Steves guiding us (by book, not in person). Before leaving town, we fueled up on pizza and orange Fanta. I’m not sure how, but Heather and I managed to talk mom into getting anchovy pizza (a local specialty). I think we enjoyed watching her eat it more than she enjoyed eating it.
That evening, we dined at Gambero Rosso in Vernazza – supposedly the nicest place in town. Actually, we didn’t have a lot of choice – being off-season, it was the only restaurant in town open that night. All the rest of the foreign tourists were eating there as well. The food was pretty good, from what I recall. I seem to remember our epicurious mother getting black pasta colored with octopus ink or something like that.
On Tuesday morning, Heather and I planned to do the hike to Monterosso al Mare – the most difficult section of the Via del Amore. Before doing so, we had to vacate our room and put our luggage in to the car. Somehow, I managed to miss a step at the very top of the four flights of stairs while carrying multiple suitcases and I fell down a flight of stairs – painfully. Being macho – I popped right to my feet and acted like nothing happened. Not a good way to start a hike!
The view of Vernazza from the trail to Monterosso al Mare
After mistakenly climbing halfway up the seaside bluffs only to find it wasn’t our trail (it would have taken 6 hours instead of 1.5!) – we located the correct trail and set off for Monterosso al Mare. When I was there in 2002, we went the opposite direction and I remember descending literally hundreds of steps as we came in to Vernazza. Now, I got to climb those steps. I huffed and puffed my way to the top, barely able to keep pace with my pregnant wife. Quite the gal.. that one!
It was easily the nicest conditions since we arrived in Italy – 60 degrees and sunny. It held out just long enough for us to reach Monterosso before the clouds rolled in. After descending hundreds of steps through vineyards and citrus groves, we met mom and William (who was napping) at the edge of town. Once again, our timing was perfect – we got to town starving smack in the middle of siesta. We were able to find exactly one open pizza shop where we devoured some pizza and caught the train back to Vernazza.
Castle and German bunker at Monterosso al Mare
Our last major challenge in Cinque Terre was getting the car out of our parking spot and back down the steep narrow trail to the road out of town. My plan was solid – I’d drive forward to the next switchback than maneuver myself until I got turned around. That plan looked good – except for the people doing brick work on the church by the switchback decided to work right when I needed to leave.
My fallback plan was to drive farther up the trail to the next switchback and try again. This would have worked – except I couldn’t make the turn on the switchback with the construction truck sitting there! I finally resigned myself to back down the trail slowly – until somebody came up the trail blocking me in. Yes, really.
That guy turned out to be our savior – he got the construction guys to move their vehicle and he guided me as I turned the car around. With a high-five and a horn blast, I thanked him triumphantly and headed out of town after scooping up William and mother at the bottom. We tiptoed our way back up the treacherous road out of town and started making our way to Pisa.
Next up – Pisa and Florence!
All pictures from the trip can be found in my SmugMug galleries here: (link)