Cinque Terre

Cinque Terre is a pretty popular hiking trail that runs along the coast and is linked by 5 tiny villages (hence the name, five lands). None of the villages have road access, which just adds to the charm. We arrived late in a small town called Levanto. The van still has no lights and the route was mostly winding roads that thankfully are not traveled a lot. We stopped in this town because we could park for 10 euros overnight and it was the first town we had seen for 30 minutes. I regret to say that we didn’t, at first, mean to stop here. We were pretty sure on making it to the parking area we had selected earlier. But due to two wrong turns and construction we did a U-turn and parked the van. The van did not survive this drive without getting some minor damage. I somehow managed to get the passenger side mirror caught on construction fencing which cracked the small mirror and bent the mirror mount. It can still be used so we were only mildly disappointed. The next morning we got up early and ventured to what was supposed to be our intended stop the night before, a whole 12 km away.

Bonassola is not considered one of the five villages that make up Cinque Terre but is a great base for doing the hike. Bonassola itself is a small village but it had lots of charm and we thought it was rather beautiful. If we wish to do the hike again, we would go back to Bonassola, maybe stay in one of the B&B’s overlooking the coast. The five villages that make up Cinque Terre are: Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso. We had a choice to make, either start in the easy section of Riomaggiore or start in the rougher area of Monterosso. Looking back, starting at the tougher section first would have been a smarter idea. The path for the most part was extremely straight forward, only when you arrived in the towns were you unsure of where to go. For that reason, we were not able to complete the hike to the last town. All hiking trails we have encountered so far in Europe are marked with red and white paint. So when we found out that we went on the wrong path in the second last town we were pretty upset since it was dark and we were getting pretty tired. The first two sections where a laugh, the 1st section could be wheelchair accessible. On the route map it estimated that the hike from each town would take 45 minutes which Julie and I did in around 20 minutes (we covered over 20.47km today, which is just under 30,000 steps). The next two sections however had pretty steep climbs that made your legs ache only after a few steps. We were told by a group of Americans that the last section we missed would have been pretty flat. Through most of the hike you could see the ocean and the cliff stretching out in either direction. You could also see the towns. It was truly beautiful and totally worth while. We have two regrets about this section of our trip. First; we didn’t finish the hike because we were too burnt out after we turned around and made our way back to the Vernazza where we caught the train back to Bonassola (It was too dark to continue anyway). Second; our laptop is broken which means we can’t take as many pictures as we would like (no way to remove the pictures). That being said, it now gives us an excuse to come back.