Cinque Terre (directly translates to "5 Lands" in Italian) is an area along the Northern Italian Riviera that is comprised of 5 really small towns that are all connected by a small train and hiking trails. I had wanted to go here more than any other place in Italy because I had heard such amazing things about how beautiful it was. I had planned virtually all of my other trips around this weekend because it needed to be warm and sunny out to fully appreciate the hiking trails, beaches, and views...needless to say, excitement for this trip had been building up for quite some time.
We stayed for one night at a hostel in the first of the towns going from south to north, called Riomaggiore, and we got a pass that gave us unlimited access to all of the trails and trains connecting the towns.
We got in at around 4:30 pm on Friday, found our hostel, which was located up the steepest and longest flight of stairs (all of the towns are build into mountains) ever. It ended up being awesome though. We were the only people staying in that part of the hostel so we basically had our very own apartment with a kitchen, living room, tv, 2-story porch with amazing views, private bathroom, and really comfortable beds. It was exactly what we needed after a semester of not-so-great hostels and pretty awful weather.First off, I have to say that Cinque Terre is definitely the most beautiful place I've ever been to and by far my favorite place in Italy. It is the Italy that everyone comes to Italy imagining. We had amazing seafood, beautiful weather, incredible landscapes, beach and mountains, beautiful flowers everywhere that made the entire place smell really good, cute shops....I felt like I was walking in a postcard. It was so incredibly stunning.
Anyway, the names of the towns are: Riogmaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and Monterosso. As I said before, they are all connected by hiking trails that are right along the sea. We hiked 3/4 of the trails...2 were pretty easy and the last was really hard, but I love hiking and I was really happy to finally be able to do outdoorsy things in Italy after so many months of cold and rain. Altogether, we hiked over 4.5 or 5 miles which took us a little over half the day. We ate a really good lunch and then took a train to the last town, Monterosso, and laid at the beach for the rest of the day until we had to go home.
There were locks and hearts like these all along the trails...allegedly people from the 5 towns weren forbidden from being together so tons of couples put locks up to symbolize enduring love..it was pretty neat:
We stayed for one night at a hostel in the first of the towns going from south to north, called Riomaggiore, and we got a pass that gave us unlimited access to all of the trails and trains connecting the towns.
We got in at around 4:30 pm on Friday, found our hostel, which was located up the steepest and longest flight of stairs (all of the towns are build into mountains) ever. It ended up being awesome though. We were the only people staying in that part of the hostel so we basically had our very own apartment with a kitchen, living room, tv, 2-story porch with amazing views, private bathroom, and really comfortable beds. It was exactly what we needed after a semester of not-so-great hostels and pretty awful weather.First off, I have to say that Cinque Terre is definitely the most beautiful place I've ever been to and by far my favorite place in Italy. It is the Italy that everyone comes to Italy imagining. We had amazing seafood, beautiful weather, incredible landscapes, beach and mountains, beautiful flowers everywhere that made the entire place smell really good, cute shops....I felt like I was walking in a postcard. It was so incredibly stunning.
Anyway, the names of the towns are: Riogmaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and Monterosso. As I said before, they are all connected by hiking trails that are right along the sea. We hiked 3/4 of the trails...2 were pretty easy and the last was really hard, but I love hiking and I was really happy to finally be able to do outdoorsy things in Italy after so many months of cold and rain. Altogether, we hiked over 4.5 or 5 miles which took us a little over half the day. We ate a really good lunch and then took a train to the last town, Monterosso, and laid at the beach for the rest of the day until we had to go home.
There were locks and hearts like these all along the trails...allegedly people from the 5 towns weren forbidden from being together so tons of couples put locks up to symbolize enduring love..it was pretty neat:
All of the girls in front of Corniglia (I think)
My favorite town was Vernazza, pictured below.
No comments:
Post a Comment