Cinque Terre 5/22 – 5/23

Cait and I left Nice super early on Saturday morning to meet Laura in La Spezia, Italy. We had tried making train reservations the day before but the Nice computers were down so that wasn’t a possibility. Thankfully when we showed up at the train station in the morning we were able to get a ticket to Ventimiglia, Italy, which is a town right across the France/Italy border. After a short and uneventful train ride we had made it to Italy and picked up tickets taking us to Genova and then on to La Spezia. We had an hour and a half in between trains to rather than sitting in the train station we took our packs and went into town to see what Ventimiglia had to offer. Ventimiglia is kind of a mixture of all sorts of things. Because it’s right across the border there are some French influences to this Italian town. I liked France while we were there but Caitlin and I both have a soft spot in our hearts for Italy so we were very happy to see the red white and green flag flying over the city. Neither of us know any French at all beyond “thank you” “hello” and “my name is…” Nor do we have any idea how to pronounce words in French so we couldn’t even pretend when reading a menu. Both of us have studied Spanish, which is closely related to Italian, so here we fared a little better.
Looking inland, in Ventimiglia we could see our first real, snow-covered mountains looming in the background, and looking in the other direction we saw the ocean, beach, and palm trees. It was a little strange but very cool to see both of these in the same place. We walked along a little river down to the ocean and sat for a while, then turned around and went back into town to further investigate a farmers market we had passed by on our way. It was fantastic, so many amazing fresh vegetables, fruits and flowers. With our packs on we were clearly way too big to be walking around in there but we lumbered through anyway, trying our best not to knock things over or hit people when we turned around. We bought some strawberries from one of the stands and went back to the train station to catch our connection to Genova.
One of the things that I have noticed in my travels abroad is that there are a ton of Canadians traveling all over Europe. I’ve met more people from Canada than from any other country. Maybe they’re just trying to get out of Canada, and really who can blame them for that? Anyway, there was a guy from Canada in our train compartment for the trip to Genova and our connection to La Spezia as well. This came in handy when trying to haul my huge pack up into the overhead storage bin. Meeting new people from different places is one of the most exciting things about traveling, and I always learn lots of good tips and interesting things from these interactions.
All of the trains were on time and before we knew it Caitlin and I were at the La Spezia train station heading to the ticket counter, hoping that Laura’s trains had been on time as well and she would be waiting for us. It was so good to see Laura! I hadn’t seen her or talked to her very much since she visited me in Sevilla at the beginning of February because her internet connections weren’t very good in London or in Florence. The three of us had a glorious reunion in the middle of the train station, and then picked up our packs and headed off to catch the little local train that would take us to the town we were staying in. Caitlin’s backpack is a relatively small pack perfect for 2-weeks worth of clothing, etc. I look ridiculous next to her with all of my stuff from the semester and 4 weeks of travel crammed in to a not-so-small backpack. It made me feel a little better that Laura was in the same boat and had all of her stuff from the semester in an enormous backpack. Now we can look ridiculous together.
The Cinque Terre is a series of 5 beautiful, tiny towns located on the Mediterranean coast of Italy. The land is extremely hilly with huge cliffs down to the water. The towns are separated from one another by hills and coves but are connected by railway. To get from one town to another you can either take the train for 1.4 euros per trip or you can hike along the cliffs following the coast. In order from north to south the towns are: Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore. Laura had gotten us a reservation for a 3-person apartment in Riomaggiore, which is the closest town to La Spezia.
The apartment was very simple and cute: a little bathroom with a shower, tiny kitchen with a huge window that opened onto the street, a small table and two ‘bed rooms’ separated by a half wall. Once we had moved our stuff in the first order of business was dinner. We walked up the hill a little ways and stopped in a few of the local shops we passed and picked up groceries. We bought bread, tomatoes, olive oil, an entire basil plant, spaghetti, tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella cheese, an onion, a bar of chocolate and an enormous bottle of cheap white wine. We went back to the apartment and baked some delicious tomato and mozzarella bruschetta for an appetizer, and then walked down the hill to the water to watch the sunset. We climbed out onto some rocks in the bay to get the best view possible and watched the sky change colors. From where we were the sun sank down behind a mountain and we could see the other Cinque Terre towns a few hills over. After the sun went down we went home and made spaghetti, drank our wine and did our best to catch each other up on what our semesters had been like.
In the morning Caitlin and I got ready to do the hike between the towns Corniglia and Vernazza. Laura didn’t want to risk her knee going out and she had already been hiking in the Cinque Terre earlier in the semester when her mom came to visit so she took the train straight to Monterosso for some beach time and Caitlin and I met her there when our hike was over. To begin the hike Caitlin and I climbed a series of almost 300 stairs zigzagging straight up a cliff face to reach the tiny cliff town of Corniglia. It took us about an hour and a half to hike from there to Vernazza, and it was potentially the most beautiful hike I have ever been on. The trail is pretty easy to follow, but there is a lot of up and down and climbing over big rocks. The hike stays along the coast the whole time, giving you a spectacular view down to the ocean. The hills on the other side of the trail are covered with trees and plants that give a little bit of shade. By the end Cait and I were drenched in sweat but we couldn’t have been happier. We had hiked with our swimsuits on so when we caught the train to meet up with Laura in Monterosso we jumped straight into the clear blue Mediterranean water. Swimming in that place was so surreal, looking around and seeing the towns on each point down the coast, the color of the water and the sand beaches. We enjoyed the beach and the sun for a while, grabbed an Italian gelato and slice of pizza for a late lunch and headed back to Riomaggiore to shower and nap.
We got dressed up for the evening and took a train back to Vernazza to watch the sunset and find some authentic Italian food for dinner. Vernazza is the most picturesque town I have ever seen. The colorful houses and restaurants come down the steep hills straight to the water. We watched the sun set over a bay full of small painted boats and sailboats, after which we left the main plaza to find a side street restaurant for dinner. We stopped at a quiet little restaurant serving pasta and seafood and had an Italian feast. Caitlin and Laura had seafood pasta and I had pesto ravioli. We shared bread and a cheese plate and a carafe of ‘cinque terre’ wine. Everything was spectacular, and we each got a final cone of gelato on the way home before calling it a night and getting our bags ready to leave for Switzerland in the morning.