Today we arrived in Cinque Terre or "5 lands".
This blog might be a bit short because my parents are giving me only 45 minutes to write and post it.
We stayed at a hotel called Swiss Bellevue (don't worry, you're not hallucinating, we not in Switzerland yet.)
At the hotel it was very windy as it is high on a hill with the ocean below.
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| The view from our hotel |
The Cinque Terre is a 5 town-hike, which became popular in the last 15 years. It takes five hours to walk the Cinque Terre without stopping, people from all over the world flock to the beautiful seaside villages and walk the hikes to the top of the mountains nearby. According to Our guide by Rick Steve's, popular travel novelist, Monterosso is the nicest of the five towns. Even when booking in advance it was hard to find a hotel.
The towns in order are: Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manorola and Riomaggiore.
In Monterosso there are 3 things you can do
- Relax
- Walk
- and the lesser known option of explore.
We started with number 3 and explored the new and old town until we found somewhere to eat. A little, seaside restaurant, a bit pricy (as so is everything) but absolutely scrummy.
The next day we started the hike from Monterosso to Vernazza.
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| Me on the hike |
On the hike I felt really sick, like a fever getting worse every step, in the end I managed to conquer the walk.
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| Looking back at Monterosso |
The hike from monterosso was beautiful.
If I come here again I will definitely do that walk again, it was one of the most calming thing I've ever done, like drinking a cup of warm jasmine tea on a cold day. The shivers and prickly waves of warm and calm just pour upon you. All this, even though i felt sick.
As we arrived in Vernazza, we stopped for ice cream and pizza. The town was destroyed in a flood and landslide a few years ago but is now mostly rebuilt.
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| Vernazza |
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| Damage caused by the floods and landslides |
We tried to continue along our walk to the next town of Corniglia. The walk from Vernazzo to Corniglia was closed and only the walk from Manorola to Corniglia was open so we decided to try that. Unfortunatel, the next train was in an hour so we took the arriving train to Riomaggiore then after a quick look around, took a train to Manorola and tried to find the trail to Corniglia.
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| Manorola |
Unfortunatley the coastal trail was closed so we had to look for a sign saying trail 6 and then go over the mountain in a big detour.
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| The hard to find number 6 sign |
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| bit more walkin |
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| Learn the power of the moustache |
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| Mr Moody |
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| Take me home |
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| Take me home |
Cinque Terre is a place that was once underappreciated and not really known to tourists. Now its a bubbling mass of tourism, shops and kiosks trying to make a living of tourists. In a way, being underapprecaited, allows you to remain cv more yourself.
Next stop Milan for a night then on to Switzerland and Spain.
Me o happy me
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