Cinque Terre Time

Bright and early Monday morning, I waved good bye to Florence and settled in for a 2-hour train ride to the Italian region known as the Cinque Terre (cheen-kway tare-ray). For those who are unfamiliar, and I was unfamiliar prior to planning this trip, the Cinque Terre is a coastal region in northwestern Italy comprised of five small towns – really, they’re tiny villages – on the Mediterranean Sea, which are also surrounded by mountains. They’re all mainly pedestrian-only zones, with limited cars even for the locals. The towns are so small, though, that having a car is kind of pointless – you can walk from end to end of each town in under a half hour in most cases. This makes for a quaint and very scenic place to spend three days.

The five towns that give the area its name (cinque is Italian for 5) are, from North to South: Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore. I of course spent a lot of time debating which one to stay in, and ultimately decided on Monterosso – it’s the largest and I felt like it would be better for me to have more options for restaurants since I often find myself with limited options when I finally get around to having dinner late in the evening. I found a really cute B&B that was reasonably priced and provided breakfast, too. There are a lot of rooms for rent (affittacamere) in the towns but most don’t include breakfast, so I was really happy to find this one. Any meal I don’t have to address is one less stressor in the day for me. And saves money, which is especially key when you’re on a long trip like this. I’m more aware of my spending on this trip than all of my previous traveling combined; the temptation to penny-pinch in the beginning is really hard to fight because I just can’t predict what 48 days of traveling will look like. Fortunately, the travel budget has been fine, but the same cannot be said for the shopping budget – Tuscany’s art galleries were a problem for me!

Anyway, back to Cinque Terre. I spent Monday afternoon exploring Monterosso – I’m staying in the Old Town so it’s especially quaint and old and colorful, but the New Town is also really nice. Since I had two full days, which is a pretty good amount of time for the region, I split the remaining four towns over the next two days – Vernazza and Corniglia on Tuesday, and Manarola and Riomaggiore today. There’s not a lot to actually do in the towns themselves, as there’s no major museums or churches, thank god (pun intended), it’s mainly wandering around and relaxing. There is a national park surrounding the towns that’s full of hiking trails that connect each of the towns. Unfortunately for me, the easy trails I had planned to do were closed, some indefinitely, due to conditions on the trails after a ton of rain and flooding, some recent and some from several years ago. The only trail in the park that was open was between Vernazza and Monterosso but it’s supposed to be pretty difficult. I probably would have tried it anyway but I’ve had a wonky left hip flexor for the last year-ish and it decided to remind me of its wonkiness the last few days. So instead of hiking Tuesday as planned, I got a massage which didn’t really fix the hip but felt nice anyway.

The Cinque Terre has gotten really popular in the last 10+ years, and the crowds have become unbearable – 95,000 people visited the region the 3 day weekend of Easter 2017. I’m here at the very start of tourist season, and it’s nothing like the pictures in the article I linked, but there’s still a noticeable influx of day-trippers every day. I got on the train to my first town the last two mornings between 9:15 and 9:45, and by my second train ride around 1-2pm, the crowds had increased significantly. There’s also a ton of large tour groups there during the day, probably from cruise ships. I would never begrudge anyone from traveling and from seeing a place that’s on their bucket list or must-see list, but I definitely enjoyed the early mornings and evenings after the day-trippers had left.

One thing I have struggled with a little is the pace – it’s much slower in Italy in general, but CT is really slow. Restaurants are pretty quick during lunch since the crowds are so much bigger, but it took 35 minutes for me to get my appetizer tonight and another 15 for my entree. I was pretty restless by the end of dinner. I also have finished my sightseeing a lot earlier in the day than I usually do, so it’s been an adjustment to come back to my room and read/relax/post pics in the late afternoon as opposed to the evening which is when I usually get back. I feel a little guilty just sitting around doing nothing, but that’s kind of the point of staying in a place like this (and of my trip overall – relaxing and slowing down).

After visiting all five towns, I think Manarola is my favorite. If I were here in the summer, I’d probably like Monterosso the best since it has a nice beach and I’d have been spending my afternoons there versus in the little courtyard outside my room. But Manarola, while “blessed” with an extremely steep hill for its main drag, had a nice little loop through a vineyard that gave a brief taste of hiking but didn’t require a huge amount of time or effort. It’s harbor was really beautiful too. Corniglia is the smallest and has no harbor; it’s 400 stairs, or a quick shuttle ride, from its train station. Vernazza is I think the most popular, and it showed in the sheer volume of people there. It has a pretty harbor and some cute shops and alleyways, and I managed to fall asleep in the sun while waiting to take a video of the train passing through for my niece (I can seriously sleep anywhere at anytime). Riomaggiore also has an extremely steep hill for its main drag, and after coming from Manarola, I was like, enough is enough with these damn hills. It did have an absolutely gorgeous harbor, though.

The CT has been the most scenic so far of my trip, though I’m curious to see how the Amalfi Coast matches up in a few weeks. The weather has been great – 60s and sunny all three days, which was a nice switch from the rain I had in Venice and Florence. Tomorrow I leave for Rome, and I’m curious to see how it measures up to the rest of Italy.

Gelato Update: 37 scoops
lemon – 9, mango – 1, strawberry – 2, caramel cream – 5, dark chocolate – 6, chocolate – 4, chocolate chip – 1; black cherry – 2; rum – 1; cookie – 1; chocolate mousse – 1; raspberry – 2; vanilla – 1; mixed berry – 1

Gelato hasn’t been quite as tasty here as it was in Florence, but it’s still really good and it hasn’t stopped me from eating a heck of a lot of it. I tried mixed berry the other day and was not a huge fan. I still can’t seem to like strawberry either. I didn’t realize I was such a dark chocolate fan, but it seems to pair really well with some of the fruity sorbets so it’s nice to have that contrast. More to come!

PS – if anyone with an Android phone knows anything about the Photos app not backing up or backing up really slowly, please reach out to me. I’ve tried disabling/enabling the app, disabling/enabling backup, restarting about 600 times, and it’s still not working the way it normally does. Entirely possible it’s my wifi here, too, though it was weird in Florence, also. Any tips/advice would be appreciated