We woke up in Vernazza that morning and walked around some of the shops. We then caught a 2 minute train ride to the next town of Corniglia. We were too tired and sore to walk that part of the trail. Plus some of it was still closed because of the flooding and mudslides. The town of Corniglia is set up on cliff side mountaintop.
 |
| View of Corniglia from the next town of Manarola |
We walked around a little and then stopped at a little cafe that advertised an "American Happy Breakfast" plate. I was up for a good breakfast, so I got that. It was ham and eggs on thick sourdough bread with a side of yogurt. I also ordered a hot chocolate and freshly (and I mean freshly) squeezed orange juice. The hot chocolate was very different. It was really thick like pudding and very rich.
 |
| the little cafe where we ate |
 |
| the "Happy Breakfast" :-) |
 |
| Beautiful fruit trees |
 |
| looking off the cliff at Corniglia |
After spending 1 1/2 hours in Corniglia, we headed back to the train station to catch the train to the next town of Manarola. The trail between Corniglia and Manarola was completely closed so we had to go by train. Manarola was a very neat town with a lot of neat shops and very colorful buildings. Before our trip, I had researched Cinque Terre online so much, so it was still so surreal to me to actually be there looking at these places in person.
 |
| backside of Manarola...a very zoomed in view from Corniglia |
 |
| The heart of Manarola. |
We literally sat on the trail forever just taking in the sight and the sound of the waves.
Josh sat there and sketched the view above for a while. He got a lot of compliments from passers by. :-)
This scene below just cracked me up when I saw it so I had to take a picture.
It was the nativity scene on the front porch of this house. They must keep it up all year. What was so funny was that on the left side with all the wise men, donkeys, etc., there were dolphins. That was the first I had ever heard about dolphins coming to see Jesus in a manger. We got a good laugh out of it. :-)
We then headed on the last stretch of our Cinque Terre trip/hike to the last town of Riomaggiore (it's actually the first town, but remember, we did the trail backwards). The trail between these two towns is called the Via Dell' Amore which means the "Lovers Walk". It was the easiest of all the trails. Very much like a stroll down a winding sidewalk. Very nice.
The walk is lines with tokens of all the "lovers" who have walked the path. Most people leave a padlock attached to something along the trail, but we saw scarves, key chains, diapers (yes, gross), Kleenex, bras, you name it. I had read about this before our trip, so I was prepared with a padlock and had written our initials, the date and our anniversary date on it.
We found a fence on the farthest point out on the cliff of the trail and Josh locked it in place. I then threw the key into the sea. Josh made fun of me and called it my "Titanic" moment like when the old lady throws her "heart of the ocean" necklace into the sea....funny, funny Josh. :-)
 |
| Josh putting our lock on the fence |
 |
| Our lock....on this side it said "JAS + CES 6. 2012" |
 |
| On the other side it said, "10 years 6.8.02" |
 |
| This corner is where our lock is. |
 |
| The trail. It literally wound around the edge of the sea. Beautiful. |
 |
| As we were walking, we saw this older man and woman out on this rock edge fishing! You can barely see them in this pic. |
After about a 20 minute stroll, we found ourselves in Riomaggiore. It didn't look anything like what I had seen in pictures, so I was a little confused and disappointed. We decided to get back on the train and head back up to Manarola. After waiting for the train for a long while, we finally noticed a pedestrian tunnel next to the train tunnel. We felt so stupid. Once we walked through that, I finally saw the Riomaggiore I had seen in pictures!
In this pic, you can barely see Josh. He climbed down this rock (there was a very rough looking stairway). In the above picture, you can see this same rock in the distance behind Josh. In the picture below, Josh is the little speck below the tree. :-)
Absolutely breathtaking views and colorful boats and buildings. There were several neat shops too.
On my original plan for this trip, I had wanted to take a boat ride to the different towns, but upon seeing how rough the sea was and then seeing these little wooden row boats that said, "For Rent, no life jackets provided", I decided to pass. I didn't realize we would have to row ourselves around! Josh said he was a pretty adventurous guy, but even he wasn't about to do that....way to scary and dangerous!
.
 |
| This little guy was enjoying the view with us. :-) |
 |
| breathtaking |
We then decided to head to the train station and get back to the main train station in the town of La Spezia. We were able to catch an earlier train, but walked around La Spezia for a little bit before we headed back.
 |
| La Spezia |
 |
| La Spezia |
On the train ride home, we rode through the town of Carrara. We could see these tall mountains in the background that looked at first like they had snow on them. We then realized that it wasn't snow at all, but a marble mining operation. If you have Italian marble of any type in your home, chances are, it comes from these mountains. Pretty neat.
 |
| you can kind of see the mountains in the background. |
 |
| giant blocks of carrara marble |
We were then able to get back to Rome in time to hang out at the Pantheon and go to our gelato place there. I just love our little evenings out in front of the Pantheon. We got rested up that night so we could be up and ready to spend our the next full day, our last, in Rome. :-(
No comments:
Post a Comment