Monday, June 13, 2011

The Cinque Terre Hike

Cinque Terre is a group of small mountain/beach towns that were, until the 1930s, connected only by walking trails. Natalie and I decided the best way to visit all the towns was to do it the traditional way, which turned out to be 8+ miles of moderate hiking. We started in the northernmost town of Monterosso al Mare. The portion of hiking can be done along the "2" trail which runs along the coast the entire way between the towns. The portion between Monterosso and Vernazza is considered the hardest portion of hiking along the "2". As we would find out later, that certainly doesn't account for the other numbered hiking trails.


Monterosso is known for its beaches which can be viewed here. It is a great place to relax by the beach and get some sun. If we had spent more time in Cinque Terre, this would have definitely been on the agenda.


The view of Monterosso when coming from the train station. The great part of the trails is that all of them lead you through the cities, not around them. If you plan on taking a trip, and are up for a pretty strenuous day of hiking, I highly recommend visiting the cities this way. You will get some of the most amazing views. The rewards are certainly worth the work.


The first of at least two little football fields which we ran across. Would be great for some small sided games, and when it gets too hot, you just run down for a "cool off" in the Mediterranean.


Above is the view of Monterosso. Littered along the paths are grapes, olives, and other small gardens which the locals maintain.


A man tending to his basil garden.


The view from roughly the highest point on the portion between Monterosso and Vernazza. Like many things in Europe, the "fence" pictured here is all that stands between you and a few hundred foot drop. This was the first portion where we really got a taste of the views to come. I will show you some of the pictures that I was able to take but as always they just don't do it any justice.


This was a popular overlook of Vernazza, where we had come from just an hour before via the train. As you can see, the weather was amazing.


The locals use these rail cars driven by what look like lawnmower motors to scale the sides of the mountain and harvest their crops. Natalie was really interested in going for a ride, but the opportunity never arose.


This is the overlook of our "swimming area" from the day before. Also, where we came up with the plan to coerce a yacht owner to befriend us, and invite us on a boat ride.


We hiked down through the Vernazza, stopped for water, and continued on. Here is about where we found out that the trail "2" was closed because they were working on it. This meant that we had to take the alternative (read strenuous) route. We continued on using trail "7".


The distance between Vernazza and the Corneglia, the next town over, is not far. However, the elevation change was massive. We got about 5/6 of the way to the top of the mountain overlooking Vernazza and ran into some fellow hikers coming down the mountain in flip flops and non-athletic clothing who were already complaining about how steep the trail was. I just feel bad for their boyfriends.


This was the best I could capture of the steepness of the trail. It was about 2 km of this kind of terrain.


On the way to the top we found the largest dandelion seed flower I have ever seen. Notice it is roughly half the size of Natalie's head.


We finally made it to the top of the mountain where San Bernardino was. A little house overlooking Corneglia is certainly a place you could convince me to move to.


As we were hiking down to Corneglia, we found this boat which we could only assume was there in case of massive flooding (you know with global warming and all).


So the view of Corneglia from the terrace was taken from the little red building next to San Bernardino (the spire).


One of my favorite pictures of Corneglia.


While Corneglia doesn't have any beaches, it is rich with agriculture. We stopped and had a "fruit lunch" consisting of peaches, strawberries and lots of water.


This is a picture of what is to come. The trail we took climbs over the mountain at the top of the picture.


The garden in front of a quaint little home overlooking the mediterranean. I couldn't help but think about the Jas and Peter tending to the garden in the blazing hot sun, though the view is a little bit better than Asheville but not much.


The rail in the bottom of the picture is for the "tram" Natalie posed in front of earlier. This is the most representative picture of how the sides of most of the mountains between the cities looked. Nearly all of these are grapes but there are some olive and lemon groves mixed in as well.


Found another football field overlooking the ocean. I wouldn't mind playing some pickup there every weekend!


A picture of Manarola which is the our fourth of the five "terres".


There are lots of creeks running down through the little towns. This was my favorite of the bridges that allowed for residents to reach the main road.


A great picture of Manarola's water front area.


Once we arrived in Manarola we were done with the strenuous portion of the hike. The walk down from the top of the mountain between Corneglia and Manarola was by far the most painful part of the hike. Halfway down we estimated a few thousand stairs, then quickly moved on to hyperbole with talk of millions. It certainly felt like it. By the time we reached Manarola we were ready for the flat "wheelchair friendly" portion of the hike.


The walk between Manarola and Riomaggiore is called the "Via dell' Amore" and has the traditional locks on the fence and messages from lovers on a white wall. We guessed that every year or so they come and paint over the old messages, creating room for new ones.


We had finally arrived at the end of our trail. Riomaggiore is a nice little town with some decent beach front area. By this point, our feet where crushed and appetites large.


We headed back to the train and met Natalie's parents for dinner. Spaghetti and anchovies hit the spot! After enjoying a nice little night at the local bar, it was on to Venice.

Location:Cinque Terre, Italy

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