First Day in Cinque Terre

We had a little problem with Internet Access at out hotel in Levanto, so we are behind in our posts.  It is Sunday night as I wrote this, catching up for Saturday.  Sunday’s post will have to wait until tomorrow sometime.  The internet here has been frustrating, sometimes it works, sometimes it does not…….well it must be Italy.

Levanto Seen From The Upper Trail

We awoke to partly cloudy skies, and found out from the hotel staff during breakfast that it had been raining for three straight days.  The forecast was for clearing in the afternoon today.  We decided to go ahead and venture out to the walking trails, and planned to walk the trail from Levanto to Monterosso.  It is one of the longer upper trails, and supposedly is less crowded.  True to the information, the trail was not crowded, and it was long.  The time for the trail walk we were taking was advertised as 2.5 hours, well it took longer than that for us.  It was very scenic, a lot of climbing up and down hills, and not all of the trail was well maintained.  In some parts, it was very difficult to traverse, and was very steep.  However, we did see a lot of the coastline along the way, and it was very beautiful.  We were glad we took three bottles of water with us for the hike, it was hot and humid for most of the day.  We saw a total of about six other couples on the hike, some going our way, and passing us by,  and the others going in the opposite direction.  We only got a little bit lost one time, and had to backtrack a little before we figured out how the trail identification system worked.  This happened during the only portion of the trail which utilized a section of the local paved road for about 300 meters, which is what threw us off.  We were not expecting to be on a paved road at all.  However, after we figured out how the trails were marked, we found where to go, and had no other problems following the remainder of the route.

For trail markers, there are painted red and white stripes on the rocks along the trails, sometimes on the trees, just whatever it takes to help identify that you are on the right path.  Some of the signs are missing, so the stripes are the only clue you are still on the correct path.  The trail needs to be marked because some of the other “trails” you pass are really access points to some of the vineyards or for other parcels of land used for farming that is done on terraces on the sides of the mountains.  The paths for the trails are actually part of the old system used by the locals to get access around their farmland.  Some of the areas contain olive groves, but most are vineyards.

Stopping For a Break on the Upper Trail

We did make it safely to the end of the trail in about 3.5 hours .  Near the end of the trail, at the top of a ridge, there was a really nice view of the coastline where you could see most if not all five of the cities comprising “Cinque Terre”, Cinque meaning five, Terre meaning lands.  There was also an old church on the trail at the top of the ridge, it was only partially intact, but still nice to visit and see.

When we finally made it into Monterosso, the city where this particular trail ended, we were beat.  It was a lot harder walk than we had anticipated, but we were glad we had done it.  We walked around a little in Monterosso and ate some lunch.  By this time, it was fairly sunny, and there were a few people out on the beach.  However, the sunshine was short lived, as it started to get cloudy again as we finished our lunch.

Rougher Section of the Upper Trail to Monterroso

We took a train to the last, or southern most  of the five cities, Riomaggiore.  We did not actually go into the city itself, we opted to go on what is called the Via del’  Amore’, which is the shortest and most “civilized” portion of the trails connecting the cities of Cinque Terre.  This trail is all paved and really set up to be accessible to everyone, for all ages and all abilities.  It takes about 20 minutes to walk this trail, and this is the portion of the trail system where all of the tourist groups visit since it is the most accessibility friendly.

Cinque Terre From The Upper Trail

By this time in the day, it had begun to get cloudy again, and then actually started to rain once more, just a steady drizzle, but enough to make it messy.

The short trail ended at another of the cities of Cinque Terre called Manarola.  We did not visit there, we just took the train to yet another one of the cities called Vernazza.  It was really nice there despite the rain.  It is probably the easiest of the cities to get to from the train station, most all of the city is downhill toward the sea.  We walked around a few stores, and visited the local Catholic church.  We noticed that they had a Mass on Saturday evening at 6:30 PM, so we decided to hang around there until that time, and go to Mass there instead of going to the Catholic Church tomorrow, on Sunday, that we had found in Levanto.

Vernazza Harbor After the Rain

After a while, the rain stopped, and we had a few peeks at  some sunshine.  We stopped off at a local outside bar and had a glass of wine.    We looked in a few more stores, and then headed to the church for Mass.  Of course all of the Mass was in Italian, but they handed us a bulletin that had most of the readings and prayers on it so we could at least try to follow and speak them in Italian.  After the Mass,  we went down to the waterfront area to watch the sun set over the Mediterranean Sea,  and enjoy a bottle of wine we had purchased earlier.   After the sun set, we headed back to the train station to catch our train back to Levanto.

Sunset From Vernazza

Once we arrived back in Levanto, we headed to a restaurant recommended by the hotel staff for its pizza.  We ordered two different pizzas, which were very good.  The place was popular with the locals, it was packed.  By the time we finished eating, it was about 10:30 PM, so we headed back to the Hotel.  It had been a long day, and we were certainly tired from all of the hiking and walking around in the cities we visited.