Cinque Terre=Heaven

We woke up early on Wednesday and hopped on our new train to Monterosso. See, our original train reservation was going to take us up to Pisa then over to Monterosso. That would have been a 5 hour trip and of course, I didn't realize how the train system worked when I reserved that trip from home. We were able to go to the train station the day before and buy a new reservation for a shorter trip to Pisa and then Monterosso (only 2 hours! much better!).

We stepped off of the train and were in heaven. Seriously. This picture was at the train station!

Let me explain how Cinque Terre is laid out. Cinque Terre means the "five lands" and therefore it consists of 5 little towns along the coast. We stayed in Monterosso (the northernmost town) but hiked to all 5 towns (you will see each one shortly).

Monterosso is the youngest, hippest, and most like a beach resort which is exactly why we decided to stay here. I was SO happy with our choice...especially after visiting all of the other towns. If you ever come to Cinque Terre, I would definitely reccommend staying in Monterosso (Vernazza seemed pretty cool too!).

OK, on our first day in Monterosso, we dropped off our bags at our AMAZING bed and breakfast, put on our swimsuits, and headed to the beach and grab lunch. Caprese salad for me and prosciutto and meloni for Mike.

The beach in Monterosso is a pebble beach and it was pretty painful to get to the water and walk around. We spent most of the day just laying out and enjoying the atmosphere. Cinque Terre is kind of like the Ozarks of Italy. People from around the area come for weekend get-aways. Apparently, it gets so crowded at some times during the summer that the police barricade the streets that enter the cities and only allow people in with hotel reservations.

We showered up and headed to our first of many delicious meals in Monterosso. Cinque Terre is known for amazing seafood since it is on the coast. It is also home to pesto so we had to make sure to eat both everyday. Dinner was amazing...swordfish for Mike and pesto pasta for me!

After dinner we walked down to the water to take some pictures on the rocks. We ended the night with wine on our B&B's terrace.

Our second day in Cinque Terre was the best. We decided to take the 6-hour hike through all 5 towns. We started in our town of Monterosso and took the 1.5 hour hike to Vernazza.

Not going to lie...it was pretty tough. A LOT of up and down! But check out the views. This is looking back at our town of Monterosso...

After exactly 1 hour and 30 minutes, we got a sight of the BEAUTIFUL town of Vernazza. This was my favorite view on the entire hike.

We stopped for a bottle of water and piece of foccacia bread and hit the trail on the way to Corniglia. Another hour and a half of up and down. I was definitely getting tired of the steps.

Corniglia is the only town in Cinque Terre that is not on the water.

We didn't stop in Corniglia...it didn't seem like there was too much to see. We kept on going and started our 45 minute hike to Manarola. This hike was much shorter and much flatter. It was great being able to see the town in the distance. This part of the hike was BEAUTIFUL. Manarola boasts about having the best deep-sea swimming in Cinque Terre. The water was gorgeous!

This is Manarola...


With only one hike left, we decided to stop for a bite to eat. The final walk from Manarola to Riomaggiore is called the Via dell' Amore, "Pathway of Love". The short hike was created as a shortcut for lovers from the two town to meet. Throughout the years, couple put locks along the path as a sign of their love. Cute.


We stopped at Bar Amore, a cliff-hugging cafe, to enjoy a couple of beers and a great view.

We had an hour to kill in Riomaggiore before hopping on a boat and heading back to Monterosso. Goodbye Riomaggiore!


I wish I knew how to make a collage on the computer because I don't want to post 5 pictures of our dinner. I'll just post the most amazing pesto gnocchi that I have ever dreamed of. Oh man, what I would do for food right now...

Our third day in Cinque Terre started off great! We enjoyed a delicious breakfast at our B&B and decided to spend the entire day at the beach in Old Town Monterosso.

I was so happy. Relaxed. Breathing in life and loving it. Ahhhh...

Mistake/Lesson #8- Don't wear rings into the ocean. Don't get too nervous, I didn't bring my wedding rings to Italy. But my darling husband did. Here is the last picture of his wedding ring...

I cried. No, it wasn't expensive but I was really sad. It was the ring that was blessed on our wedding day, the ring that I put on his finger in front of our friends, family, and G-d, and I cried. But there was NOTHING I could do about it. It slipped off when a wave hit him and it would be impossible to find it among the millions of pebbles that were changing every few seconds. I vowed that I wouldn't let it ruin the rest of my trip. I didn't really like that ring anyway and it even mentioned it HERE!
It was time to let the ring go and get over it (which took me a few hours) and get do our last amazing dinner in Cinque Terre. I don't even eat seafood and I thought this was pretty amazing. (I didn't eat the crayfish things but I thought the shrimp and rice were delish.)



We walked around for the rest of the evening and enjoyed our final night in Monterosso. I love this picture and how you can see all 5 towns lit up at night.


We absolutely LOVE Cinque Terre and although I thought I would never want to go back to Italy, I would definitely come back here.

Where did we stay? The fantastic Locanda il Maestrale. If you go to Cinque Terre, I couldn't recommend this B&B enough. We adored this place. Our suite had 2 levels...a seating area and bathroom downstairs and bed upstairs.



Outdoor terrace where we read, ate breakfast, and drank wine at night.







Our Cinque Terre itinerary didn't really include much. Ahhh...so relaxing!
Wednesday, June 9th
-lunch and layout at the beach
-dinner at Ristorante Belvedere
Thursday, June 10th
-hike the 5 towns (6 hours)
Friday, June 11th
-Beach day
-Dinner at Il Casello