Cinque Terre is made up of 5 villages - Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, Riomaggiore - connected by a coastal path and a railway line with train stops only a few minutes apart. The area is famous for the coastal walk but in 2010 they had a massive landslide and so part of the walk is closed (we knew that before going). Tourism is HUGE business here. We came at the end of April hoping we'd miss most of the tourists but still get some sunshine - we were extremely lucky with the weather. The small villages were already jam-packed with tourists while we were there but not so that it was a problem for us - it would be unbearable in summer.
Straight after work on the Thursday we flew to Pisa and took a tightly scheduled back-to-back journey of 3 trains to get to Vernazza, our base for the weekend.
We woke up on Good Friday to a sunny morning and found a spot for breakfast. We spent the morning exploring Vernazza - the town, the castle tower, and people watching in the square with glasses of aperol spritz. We hopped on the train to Manarola around lunch time. We grabbed some calamari and sat in the sun looking over the ocean, and then hung out in a bar enjoying aperols and I had a caprese salad. It was such a great spot we didn't want to move from there. In the late afternoon we went to Riomaggiore. We found a cute wine bar for sunset and walked to dinner. I had a twisted pasta with sea urchin, cheese & pepper to start, and rabbit and greens for main. Afterwards we jumped on the train back to Vernazza.
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| Hello Spritz time! |
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| Vernazza |
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| Vernazza |
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| Vernazza |
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| Vernazza |
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| Vernazza |
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| A good sign |
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| Wandering around the village |
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| Manarola, the fishing boats are parked on the main street between shops |
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| View from Manarola |
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| Manarola |
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| A good sign |
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| Afternoon in the sun |
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| Riomaggiore at dusk |
Saturday was our day for the coastal walk. We grabbed some breakfast at a cafe near our apartment and took the train to Riomaggiore where we wanted to begin. The first leg from R. to Manarola was a back route because of the landslide and was 600 steep steps over the mountain and took us about 2 hours. We had earnt our foccacia and gelati lunch in Manarola. The next leg - Manarola to Corniglia had to be done by train. Corniglia is on the top of a mountain so once we walked up to it, we had time for a look around before getting back to the walk. Corniglia to Vernazza was my favourite leg of the walk - the views, the plants and the colours were so pretty. The last leg was Vernazza (after another gelati pit stop) to Monterosso. We got there around 6-ish, time for an aperol spritz before getting back to Vernazza.
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| Riomaggiore |
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| Manarola |
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| Manarola |
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| Manarola |
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| Focaccia lunch |
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| Coastal views |
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| Corniglia |
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| Gorgeous colour combinations |
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| Vernazza |
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| Vernazza |
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| Action shot |
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| Final stop, Monterosso |
That evening we had dinner at Belforte, an open air restaurant in Vernazza. I had pasta with zucchini, tomato and prawns, grilled sea bass and vegetables, and chocolate raisin cake. It got pretty chilly pretty quickly up there, so after dinner we ducked into the only bar in town, the Blue Marlin, for a few drinks before heading home.
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| Sunset at dinner |
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| Action shot |
We were back in relaxation mode on Sunday. We had breakfast, a spritz in the square, and then headed to Manarola for a long lunch at Trattoria Billy. I had a caprese salad to start, then Ollie and I shared a fresh crab tagliatelle. We didn't realise we'd have to shell it ourselves so we donned our bibs and cracked our way through lunch over a carafe of the house white, and finished off with a chocolate mousse. We took a boat trip back from Manarola to Vernazza - it was nice to see all the villages from the ocean. We spent the rest of the afternoon having a few drinks down by the port.
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| Breakfast |
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| Spritzing |
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| Train spotting |
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| Fresh anchovies |
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| Caprese salad |
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| Not too impressed with the bib and white dress situation |
While it was warm and sunny in the daytime, the evenings were still really cool. We rugged up for dinner in the square and enjoyed the seafood risotto as a starter and the grilled sea bream and vegetables. After that we made a dash inside and warmed up a bit there and back at the Blue Marlin.
After three days of sunshine, it was raining cats and dogs on Monday. We had the morning to spare before we needed to get going. After packing up and having breakfast, we found a dry spot in a cute wine bar to camp out in for a while. We wrote our postcards, tested the red vino, and shared a lasagne all pesto. It was a lovely last morning before doing the reverse journey of 3 trains and a plane to get back to London.
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