Cinque Terre

We took a day trip to Cinque Terre for what we thought was going to be a leisurely little stroll from village to village.  We quickly found out that we were wrong about that.  We took a train from Florence and got off at the first town, Monterroso.  When we got there we walked around and admired how beautiful it was.  Then, we grabbed something to eat and did a little shopping.

Beth & GiGi found a shop about 33 seconds after getting off the train.

We need one of these in St. Joe.

From Monterosso, we found the hiking trail and headed to the next town of Vernazza.  We were thinking that the hike would be a quick, easy walk.  Well, we were in for a rude awakening.  The first part was straight up and over a couple of mountains.  For a minute I wasn't sure that we would all make it.  Although the hike was tough, we did have a good time and found out that GiGi is horribly afraid of heights.  She never took either hand off of the rock walls that we hiked by.  I have to admit that I was impressed that even though she was scared she never complained and never seriously thought about turning back (at least out loud, anyway).  The views were amazing.  So amazing that I ran the camera battery down before we made it to every town.

GiGi hugging that wall.

Still hugging that wall.

A momentary release of the wall for a photo.

Yep, still hugging that wall.

View of Monterosso

View of Monterosso

View of Vernazza

View of Vernazza

Random steps up a rock wall to another path.

View of Vernazza

View of Vernazza

GiGi taking a break while we make sure we are on the right trail.

Just before we reached Vernazza we saw a few houses that were still in ruins from the mud slides that occurred last year.  It was sad to see these houses still in this condition.  By the looks of it, Vernazza must have been hit the hardest by the mud slides as efforts to rebuild were still going on everywhere.

After 90 minutes of strenuous hiking, we arrived in Vernazza.  I don't think that any of us were to upset to find out that the hiking path from Vernazza to Corniglia was closed due to the mud slides.  Well, Beth was a little upset since they still charged us full price for the hike.  So, we headed to the train station to catch a ride to the next town, Corniglia.  Once we got to Corniglia we opted to bypass it and head to the next town since the only way to the center of town was straight up another mountain.  However, there were actual steps this time, but we still decided to skip it.  The hiking trail to the next town of Manarola was also closed, so we hopped back on the train after we were assured that the previous tickets that we purchased were still good to get us to Manarola.  Once we arrived in Manarola and stepped off the train we were approached by an Italian train policeman who wanted to see our train tickets.  So we gave him the tickets and he started writing us a ticket.  We started trying to ask him why he was writing us a ticket to which he kept replying in Italian and we couldn't understand anything but 50 euros.  I kept trying to ask him what would happen if we didn't pay the ticket, but he never answered.  Suddenly, he said that 15 euros would be fine.  Again, I asked what would happen if we didn't pay, but still got no answer.  I was trying to tell him that we were not going to pay and started to walk away, but GiGi pulled out 10 euros from her purse and he said that would be fine.  I wish we had not paid him, but we did.  Before he left I started shouting "Allora" (not sure what it means, but I hear everyone saying it over here) at him.  So, now we are each in for 5 euros a piece for the hiking trail that isn't fully open, money for train tickets that we didn't think we were going to need and 10 euros for a train ticket that we had no idea why we got.  However, the show must go on.  Manarola was as beautiful as the other cities and since there were no mountains to climb to see the town we took a stroll around.

GiGi tried to get a picture of the guy who gave us the train ticket.

After our time in Manarola, we hiked to the last town of Riomaggiore.  This hike was much more of what we were expecting.  It was a beautiful 20 minute walk with great views.  We saw all of the locks of love and GiGi wrote Beth loves Wynn on the graffiti wall.  Once we got to Riomaggiore, we went to get a train ticket back to Florence and discovered that the train was coming in about 15 minutes, so we did not have time to wander around.  So maybe next time we will get to when Wyly and Corey are in town.

- WN