5TERRE

Bright and early on Friday morning, Sarah, Jack, and I had our rendezvous at Santa Maria Novella for our day trip to Cinque Terre. (Southern Anna was the original mastermind behind this but abandoned us for a weekend in Spain.) We met at 7:15, which required (for me) a 6:00 wake-up because I slept late against logic, hadn’t packed anything, and needed a shower to help my eyes stay open.

Cinque Terre is five towns along a nine-kilometer stretch of the Italian coast on the Mediterranean. They are all protected as part of an Italian national park. When we got off the train at the first town, Riomaggiore, there were a ridiculous amount of tourists. Think Florida Disney World, Louisiana Bourbon Street, or Florence Cuomo.

We walked the “trail” (really a large sidewalk) to the second town, Manarosa, darting past tourists. The only novel, good thing about the tourists were they were almost exclusively Italian, with a few Germans mixed in. No obnoxious Americans or shutter-happy Japanese. It was here we noticed the strange and cool fauna of the area. Cinque Terre is like the Jurassic Park of plantlife. Things exist that, in all logic, probably shouldn’t. There are olive trees, lemon trees, rose bushes, needle-less cacti, bamboo, and some strange hybrid that looks between aloe and agave??? To name a few. So awesome.

After we left Manarosa, the trail got significantly less and less commercial and easy until the end of the day. There were still other walkers but definitely room to breathe and easily maneuver.


When we arrived in Cornigilia, the third and middle town, we saw an empty restaurant with an attractive menu. Seafood is both fresh and cheap in Cinque Terre since it’s on the coast, as opposed to frozen and expensive in landlocked Florence. Figuring we had time, we decided to relax in the sun at a small marina nearby.


When we came back up, a bus of tourists had arrived, and the restaurant was packed. We still got a table. Sarah ate a mixed shellfish spaghetti, Jack got stuffed mussels, and I got mussels and spaghetti. We split some grilled vegetables and tiramisu for good measure.


We walked on to Vernazza (easily the busiest of the towns), which has brightly colored buildings, layered streets, and a location nestled into seaside mountains. It looks like something out of someone’s imagination. It’s also significantly larger than the first three, which means we had some time to purposefully get lost and explore. We got some artisanal gelato and, while looking for the path to the last town, dead-ended at a church. Its courtyard had a stairwell down into a small, rocky cove where we decided on another R&R break.

Madonna of the Rocks

Eventually when the sun got lower in the sky, we hiked on to Monterosso, the largest town, which is like a small-scale beachfront city. More developed and structured, but still clean and charming. On the completely empty and rather perilous last path – “Shouldn’t there be a guard rail here?” – we were contemplating some rather morbid thoughts. What if someone fell into this forest of thorns rosebushes or, say, off one of these cliffs? The views were amazing though. We were hiking through a lemon tree grove and appreciating the clean, bright fragrance when we suddenly heard music. We thought it was a radio. They play music to their lemon trees? Is it like talking to your plants? We rounded a corner and found a man who had set up a small stand, making both lemonade and lemoncino (imagine a lemon version of grappa). We bought a bottle of lemoncino and enjoyed its refreshing and alcoholic contents the rest of the way.

The last part of the path ending at Monterosso wraps around a rockface and overlooks the beach. It was glorious. The sun had set, and we didn’t have towels. Nor had we changed into our swimsuits. So we didn’t actually get in the water, but we did have dinner at a restaurant overlooking the beach and then missed our planned train to get some more gelato and drinks there.


Cinque Terre was awesome. If you’re ever in Italy and like the outdoors, make sure to stop by.