Cinque Terre

The original plan was to head to Sienna, but the day before our trip, we changed our minds and decided we'd check out Cinque Terre (Chink-wa  Ter-a) instead.

Cinque Terre is a set of 5 different towns along the coast of Italy.  Each town is connected by trails, and during the summer season, serious hikers will show up early in the morning and spend 4-14 hours hiking the trails between each of the towns.  The plan we formulated was to head to town number one, and do the trail between it and town two.  It was the easiest, and shortest of all the trails, and would allow a stroller.  Sadly though, when we went to pay our trail fee, we discovered the trail was closed due to the wet weather.  So the hike was derailed, but at least there were trains.  We picked up a train pass that let us go to each of the towns, and then get a ride back to La Spezia.

Town number 1:  Riomaggiore

This was our first stop, and immediately outside the train station was a large mural depicting (and modeled by) the locals of the town.  

Just after the mural was a long, underground tunnel that we followed to get to the main street of the town.  The tunnel was filled with artwork along the walls depicting the sun, moon, ocean, and animals.  It was pretty, but hard to get good photographs of it.

This is the main walk, we decided to follow the advice from the guidebook and do a walking tour of the town.  We followed this, which ended up being really steep hills to the top where we could overlook the town and ocean.

We stopped for a quick lunch at this take away shop.  It was fun, they were a little overwhelmed with the amount of food we ordered, but it was hot, and fairly tasty.  Rylissa tried a crepe with nutella, and she loved it.  Tim and I had fish and chips, Tayzia got a pizza slice (surprise) and the boys had fries and chicken.  They gave us some free focaccia bread, so I tried it, and it was pretty tasty!

After our lunch, we hopped on the train again.

Town number 2:  Manarola

Right away, we knew this was going to be a special place.  We followed the line of tourists and found the path that walked right along the ocean.

And here it is, the most gorgeous place I think I've ever been.  This is in mid day sunlight, I can't imagine how gorgeous it would look at twilight, or in the sunset.  Pure beauty right here.

We just stayed on the path staring out over the ocean.  We kept looking down, wondering if it would be just as gorgeous under the water as it is above.  If we ever end up in Europe again, I think we'll come out and see if there's good diving!

 Town number 3:  Corniglia

We stopped in Corniglia and started on our way toward the town, but then took a break to read what the guidebook suggested doing here.  We discovered that it was mainly a quiet, small town filled with wineries, and wine tastings.  It was inland, and so the town didn't overlook the ocean, and we decided that it wasn't quite the town for us.  I'm sure it was beautiful, but we were trying to get to all the towns a little, and then get back on the train for home.  So we turned around and went to wait for the train.

Just waiting for the train, on the empty platform.

The view while waiting for the train!

Town number 4:  Vernazza

We made our way into Vernazza.  The guidebook said this was the jewel of the Cinque Terre, but most of the town was under construction, so it was loud noises, and scaffolding, and all sorts of other construction frustration.  We did find some great things here, like this unique nativity.  I imagine it's all lit up at night.

We walked down the street and just off to the left there was s tunnel through the hill, leading to the beach.  The girls immediately went running toward it.

Sigh.... beauty.

We didn't make it to the 5th town (Monterosso) mainly because our plan to get home was time specific.  We had to take a 20 minute train to La Spezia, where we'd switch trains and take an hour and 20 minute ride back to Pisa, and then get on the bus back to our apartment.  The last bus of the night is at 8:30, so we planned to start our way back to town around 4:30.  So we hopped the train to la Spezia, and that's where everything fell apart.

We got to the train station and discovered that the train we were planning to take was cancelled.  The next train into Pisa wouldn't leave for another 40 minutes.  We stopped in at the station McDonalds and let the kids have a snack.  When we got to the platform to get on the train, we discovered it was cancelled as well.  We decided to go to the ticket counter to find out what was what, and that's where we discovered ALL trains to Pisa were cancelled...... indefinitely.  Tim got into the line to get ideas on how to get back to Pisa, and he had to wait for close to an hour.  Finally he got to the front where he was told that we were going to need to get on the train taking us to Firenze, because it makes a stop in Pisa.  However, that train didn't leave for another hour.  Sigh.... so it was back to McDonalds for dinner.

Thanks to the train hassles, we didn't get back to Pisa until close to 9:00.  All the buses were done, no bus ride back to the hotel.  So......

We posed for pictures at the fountain in front of the station.....

 We checked our GPS to discover exactly how far we would need to walk, if we decided we didn't want to take a cab......

 And then, thanks to the warmth of the night, we decided to hoof it the 2 kilometers back to the room.  It took us roughly 45 minutes, and we were exhausted.  Instead of packing up, we crashed.

Even with all the frustrations with our travel plans, this was by far our best day.  We all had so much fun in Cinque terre, and even during our torturous wait at the different train stations, and the long walk home, the kids had great attitudes and big smiles on their faces.  It was a big adventure, filled with great memories.