Cinque Terre... Five Villages In One Day!

From the beautiful to the disappointment and back to the amazing. This weekend had a little bit of everything… Different places in Italy and different emotions. But all around was a great weekend and a time to learn important lessons. For this weekend I traveled with Jenny, Kristina, and Sarah!

Where to begin!!! Delayed train after delayed train, we arrived in Cinque Terre 2 hours later than we intended. With all our bags, we had to sprint up the huge hill of Riomaggiore (one of the 5 main towns of Cinque Terre) in order to catch our shuttle from the city to our hostel. So since we were in such a rush, most of the things in the town were such a blur to me that night. But it was okay because we’d have the whole next day to spend in the 5 towns!

What I do remember on the shuttle up to the hostel was the beautiful sunset on the water! I was trying to snap as many pictures as possible, but with a rickety shuttle it was a bit of a challenge. It’s an image I can still see in my mind.

That night we checked into our hostel. Definitely one of the worse places I’ve ever stayed haha but for only $25 a night it was worth it! We all went to bed early that night to get ready for the long, exciting day ahead of us.

The following day...

We woke up really early to get an early start on the day! In Cinque Terre, there are hiking trails all throughout each town and we decided to try the first one from Monterosso to Vernazza. Monterosso was the farthest away from where we were staying so we took the train out to the town.

Right off the bat we could see this city was very touristy. Little shops all along the streets with lines of beach chairs and umbrellas you had to pay for in order to go on the beach. Even though you could tell this city had lost some of its culture due to tourism, it didn’t take away from the beauty of it. It had adorable colorful buildings and crystal clear waters just on the shore of the city.

  And this weekend I was on the Italian Riviera!! Again on the Meddertanian sea!

  As any traveler knows, Rick Steves knows his stuff. So we used one of his self guided tours through the city of Monterosso. We toured through the streets and walked up a trail to the top of the city. From there we could see all of Monterosso.

We also walked into a quaint chapel playing music that honeslty felt so peaceful to be in. I feel like along this experience, it’s been hard for me to have spiritual moments because my mind is always in a go-go mode, whether with school or traveling. So it was very nice to be in there and take a step back. Right beyond it was a graveyard. I’ve never seen a graveyard with graves dating back to the 1200s. And no joke, this graveyard had some graves in that century.

After the overlook, it was time to move onto our hike!! All excited we eagerly started the hike to the next town, Vernanza.

 Well shortly after starting, I realized this was going to be a challenging hike. Hills with steps that reached up and up and small narrow paths, you had to be on guard the whole time you hiked. Having a cold definitely didn’t help as I was wheezing for most of the time hiking.

However, the views from the hike are incomparable. While we were hiking we were surrounded by mountains that fell off into the sea! And at times you could see the next town jutting out from the mountain, that was my favorite part. There were also vineyards all up and down the hills and slopes. Simply put: it was amazing. And even though it was a hard hike, it was definitely worth the effort.

We finally made it to Vernazza!! It’s interesting to me how the 5 towns were similar but also different at the same time! Vernazza was unique in the since that the town was essentially completely around the water. So many people were using little boats or swimming. And it had a very lively feel to it, even though when we got there it was only about 12.

We walked the streets and went by the water. Again brightly colored building lined the town.


   
We checked the clock and decided it was time to move on to the next town Corniglia. Originally we had thought we were going to hike this trail again to the town, but after the last one we said nope! So we took a quick train over to the next city.

Corniglia is a much quieter town than the rest of them. I think this mainly has to due with the fact that it’s situated high on a hill and the only access to it is to climb more stairs… my theme song for the whole way up was “started from the bottom now we're here!” haha it was so rewarding when we got to the top and I could sing it! Just look at all those stairs!!

As Corniglia is smaller we moved quickly through this town and headed to our next stop, Manarola. In Manarola we booked a wine tour!! We had to rush to get changed, and although we were hot from the day we were really excited... I mean who wouldn't be in excited about a wine tour in Italy?

We go to our meeting spot right outside the only church in town, San Lorenzo, and are there about 20 minutes early. As the time ticks down I'm getting more and more excited... until I start to get this uneasy anxious feeling. I'm looking around at the people near the church with us and no one seems ready to go on a wine tour. I decide just to ask a couple people and no one else was there for a wine tour... 5 minutes till the time it's supposed to start and still no one else is there for a wine tour and no tour guide. Jenny runs down to an area to get wifi and double checks the meeting spot and asks several people. Yep, we we're in the right place.

5 minutes past the meeting time, we're annoyed these people were late. 15 minutes past the meeting time, now we are starting to get upset and very worried. Jenny runs down again to check wifi for an email about any last minute change, but nothing. 30 minutes past the meeting time and we know. This was a scam. We already booked and paid online and they weren't going to show up or let us know anything. This is where the disappointment sets in.

Conveniently, I am right across the church when these emotions arrive so I just go and sit in the church. And as the other girls are trying to figure out what was going on, I honestly just sat there and connected with God. As I mentioned before, it's so hard to have time here to sit back and do anything like that because we constantly have to keep going during this trip.

But what I told myself that day in the church was this: Anxiety and disappointment are both allowed, but only for a certain amount of time. If I choose to dwell for long lengths of time on the unchangeable, then that's my fault and my problem. But if I can realize what happened and adjust, then this is what's important. I knew that how I choose to move on from this will help me grow as a person.

So I got up and we went to see the city. This town may have been one of my favorites actually and I'm glad we got to see all of it. I loved the setting of the town layout and the water.

We also decided to do our own self-guided wine tour. Rick Steves has a recommendation on a vineyard up the hill and we decided why not try it! So we went up Cantina, which has its own factory on top of the hill! 

 

We got to look around the factory, walk through the vineyards, and watch a video on how the wine was made in that winery. We decided to count this as our unofficial wine tour and we even tried some of the wine. We tried Sciacchetrà, the local dessert wine of Cinque Terre. It was honestly the sweetest wine I'd ever tasted, so good.

 

After our own wine tour, we hung out a little longer in Manarola and then took the train over to the last town in Riomaggiore. Unfortunately, we got to see this one in the day and night only for brief periods but it was still awesome to say we got to check out all 5 towns of Cinque Terre!

Now, I’ve skipped over one very important section of the day because I wanted to talk about it all together… and that is FOOD :) wow was it wonderful throughout Cinque Terre!!!

To start it off I had a lovely cuppaccino to wake me up in a small café in Monterosso. Then had delicious focaccia presto pizza in Vernazza. After I ate such heavenly gelato in Corniglia (coffee, hazelnut, and honey flavored [and I got the honey because they use the local honey made right in Corneglia]). And for dinner, I got the risotto al mare and it was the best seafood dish I have ever had. I hadn’t even tried half the foods on it before and didn’t know how to eat, but man was it good. Mussels, claims, shrimp, crab, calamari…. Yum yum yum

We ended the night right with such a great dinner. Overall Cinque Terre had proved to have its ups and downs, but the villages themselves were wonderful and the food delightful :) I've always known that being a tourist, some people will try to take advantage of you. I experienced that firsthand during this trip, but at the same time I grew from it and left feeling closer to God.  

This was just one day of our weekend. We still had another full day! And for that day we were off on a train to our next destination…