Monterosso

From Lucca, it's a short ride on the Autostrada, A11/12, to S1 and then northeasterly to Cinque Terre. We decided to look for a place in Monterosso, the most northeasterly of the five seaside villages that make up the Cinque Terre.

Like all but one of the five, Monterosso starts at sea level and works it's way up the hillsides. The two views on the left are from the two-lane windy road that leads down to town, eventually. In the third photo our hotel is the sort of orange structure a little to the left of the middle. It was the first place we found that had a room for three nights - Thursday through Saturday. The other places we tried were booked already for Saturday night.

Starting just behind our hotel was a pathway that led up the side of the hill and eventually to a small church and ruins of a castle. Monterosso is separated into the "old town" and the newer area where our hotel was by a promontory on which the church and castle ruins are located. In the photo on the bottom right you can see a WWII "Pill Box", the small round structure in the upper middle of the photo.

We called this caffé near our hotel "the red table place". They made hearty drinks and it was a good place to pick up bottled water. The tables were right out on the sidewalk overlooking the beach.

Cinque Terre is a National Park and World Heritage site. The five villages are connected by a train line, passenger boats and a foot trail. You can also get around by car but you really don't want to. The road is way up on the side of the hill and winds up and down with lots of switchbacks.

We opted to travel by train and foot so we bought a two-day pass that included unlimited train rides and use of the foot paths and trails that connect the towns together. On Friday we took the train to the town farthest away, Riomaggiore, and started walking back to Monterosso, about a seven mile hike.

The first portion on the path is called Via dell' Amore, Street of Lovers, because so many couples have professed their undying love along the rocks and plants adjacent to the trail. This part of the hike was easy and relatively flat.

The first town from Riomaggiore is Manarola. From left to right: the approach, the town, leaving.

Leaving Manarola, the trail is still pretty tame - a few more ups and downs but nothing very steep or strenuous. Eventually you find your way to Corniglia, the only one of the towns not built right down by the ocean. We walked around Corniglia a little and bought a bottle of white wine, the specialty wine of Cinque Terre, to have with our picnic supplies somewhere on the trail between Corniglia and Vernazza, the next town up.

It was difficult to get a decent photo of Corniglia as we left because we were facing directly into the sun - too much glare. We eventually found a nice little picnic area where we were able to enjoy our pannini and vino bianco.

The trail from Corniglia to Vernazza became much more difficult and steep. We heard from hikers coming from the other direction that the trail between Vernazza and Monterosso was even more difficult. So we set our sites on Vernazza and kept trudging. We figured that we'd take the train from there back to Monterosso or perhaps catch the boat.