Cinque Terre

View from our room in Vernazza

Manarola.. my favorite!

Hey guys!

This is possibly the most beautiful place I have ever been! The Cinque Terre is on the west coast of Italy, on the Ligurian Sea. The name means "The Five Lands" in Italian and is made up of 5 villages, all on the coast. The five villages are called Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso. We stayed in the fourth village, called Vernazza. Kristen booked our hotel for 2 nights, and a few days after our booking we got an email from the owner. They said that our room was already booked, but they could put us up at another one of their rooms. We ended up staying in a room that was wayy nicer and paid less than half of what the rate normally is. It was still really small.. and we had to climb about 100 stairs to get to it.. and there was no heat.. but once we saw how pretty the town was we didn't even care! We had the most horrible trip there, that I won't even go into detail about, but once we arrived we were so happy to see that we made a great choice on a place to visit. And wow I almost left out the best part.. Cinque Terre is the birthplace of PESTO. OMG. I think you can guess what I spent my 3 days eating..

The main thing to do in the Cinque Terre is to hike all the 5 villages. The hike is about 5 hours, it's a bit difficult, but according to my old pal Rick Steves it is well worth it for the amazing scenery. Rick is the man, and he was totally right. We woke up early the next morning, put on the closest thing we had to "hiking gear" and headed out. Thankfully it was the nicest, sunniest, warmest day we had the whole time we were in Italy. When we arrived at the train station, we saw a huge sign that said TRAILS CLOSED TODAY. WHAT? We came here to do this hike.. you have got to be kidding me. Luckily we got the inside scoop from a lovely lady in a local boutique, who spoke with the thickest Italian accent I've ever heard. I wish I could type out how she sounded but it just doesn't work as well as ze french accent when written. Anyway she said that they just say that the trail is "closed," in theory, but in reality there aren't any gates or anything to stop people from hiking it. So of course, being the rebels that we are, we decided to venture on for our hike.

You start at the first town of Riomaggiore and work your way up, and as you get to each town the hike gets steeper and more difficult. The first hike was a breeze.. it was a hike down "lover's lane" on valentine's day. It is literally called that. This specific trail was open just for Valentine's day. Many couples thought it'd be a nice idea to get intimate on the way of the hike.. how romantic. Anyway I was having a big problem with my ankles for some reason, so I appreciated this leisure stroll while it lasted. During the last hike that small knot in my ankle turned into agonizing pain in both of my ankles.. but that's another story! As we continued through the villages things started to change.. the trails got a lot narrower, rockier, and steeper. There was never a point where I didn't want to continue though, everything was so pretty it was completely worth it. We stopped in the middle for our picnic lunches (obviously another pesto-based meal), we "accidentally" trespassed into a local vineyard and had our lunch there. As we were eating we found out quickly that there is a very big problem with stray cats around these parts.. I have never been so creeped out in my life.

Eventually we escaped the stray cats, and the actual hike time ended up taking about 5 hours in total. We got to the last town just in time to see the sun setting. Needless to say we got a really good nights sleep this night.. minus the fact that our room was NO JOKE about 30 degrees! Oh and also.. I'm so glad that we put on our hiking gear, because I think that every other woman that we saw on the trails was wearing high-heeled boots. Italian chicks are crazy. I still can't figure out how they did it! More to come on VENICE the next stop on our little Italian holiday :) Ciao for now!

Manarola.. 2 towns down, 3 more to go! We still look so peppy..

Lover's lane.. couples lock the locks together and throw the key in the sea. Kristen and I skipped that part..

Quick trespassing for an afternoon picnic. I guess we were into the thumbs up on this day.

Manarola got smaller and smaller as we headed to Corniglia

If you look closely you can see the first town in the distance too

The trail gets a bit more difficult and deserted

Made it to Vernazza, the village where we stayed

The trail gets a bit narrower.. yes those small rocks are the actual "trail" and at one point there was definitely a cliff on one side of us.

The sunset! and this rock reminds me of the Little Mermaid!

Last view of Cinque Terre. Next morning it's off to Venice bright and early!