Falling in love… with hiking!

Immediately after our class excursion to Pisa, Cailin and I jumped on a train to La Spezia, a town just south of the Cinque Terre and where we would be spending the next two nights (well, we actually walked for 45 minutes through the hottest part of the day carrying our 30 pound overnight bags, but I shouldn’t be complaining… I was in Pisa on my way to one of the most beautiful places on earth!)

After a long day of sightseeing and traveling we finally arrived at our hotel a little tired and wanting to rest up for the next day’s hike. We went out for a delicious dinner in La Spezia and then walked around a little bit because it was still too early to just go to sleep for the night. We got the best chocolate gelato and then had a scary encounter with a guy who wouldn’t leave me alone and followed me for a good 5 minutes… luckily, my quick thinking got me out of that one. (No need to worry everyone– I’m good in tough situations and I’ve got my size on my side because Italian men are short and thin!) After that adventure I was ready for a good night’s sleep in preparation for the long day ahead!

yummy!

Before I tell the story about our long day on Saturday I think it’s important you know where exactly I’m talking about…

Cinque Terre in relation to Florence and the rest of Italy

map of the 5 towns and trails connecting them

On Saturday morning Cailin and I woke up early to take the train to our starting place… Riomaggiore (the southernmost of the towns). The path between Riomaggiore and Manarola is called Via dell’Amore and it’s the easiest of the paths by far. Last year (or a couple years ago) there was a landslide that took out the trail and they replaced the path with an ugly walkway that’s essentially just a sidewalk with beautiful views (though not the best we saw all day). I was unimpressed and a little worried that the entire hike would be like that.

the beginning of our daylong journey

view of Manarola, the 2nd town, from the walkway

Fifteen minutes later we reached Manarola…

Manarola was the cutest little Italian town. Maybe it was just because we were there at 9 am before the tourists arrived, but it seemed so much more steeped in Italian culture than the others which were overridden with people that obviously did not live there. People in Manarola spoke only Italian and wandered the streets getting their morning grocery shopping done while stopping to chat with the passersby.

After much confusion, we were told that we had to get on a bus from Manarola to a small town in the mountains called Volastra because the trail between Manarola and Corniglia is still impassible. The trail between Volastra and Corniglia was by far my favorite (and the most challenging) of the day. Most photos below were taken on this trail (because my camera died after this), but the most challenging parts couldn’t be captured on camera because I was too busy trying to make it across the path without falling off the cliff to my left!! If you want to follow our route on the map, we started in the south at Riomaggiore, walked north to Manarola, then bused to where trail 6 breaks into 6 and 6d. We followed the 6d and 7a trails down to Corniglia. From there we followed the blue trails through the rest of the towns.

looking backwards and down the mountain at Manarola

view from the beginning of the trail

way out there in the distance on the last piece of land that juts out is our final destination of our hike, Monterosso

Most paths were fairly similar to this one (some were much more difficult, some were wider). Paths were about 1 foot wide and had a cliff directly to the left without anything to hold onto. Notice the steep decline to the left of this one… this was one of the easiest parts of this trail. Also, you can see the crops of a family farm surrounding this trail. We were walking through people’s backyards, past them picking their crops, through their conversations with their neighbors… it was awesome to get a glimpse into the lives of these Italian people.

the view if I look directly down and to my left

Words cannot describe the feeling you get when you can look down to your left and see nothing but a huge drop into the water. So much fun!! and it was all so beautiful!

I was trying so hard to get a good shot of the drop directly to my left, but these pictures just don’t do it justice.

oh my goodness, there were so many stairs!! all uneven, broken and missing, of course (There weren’t many stairs on this path–more on the others–but my camera had died by then so I couldn’t take a picture.)

Corniglia!

beginning the decent to Corniglia

The hike from Volastra to Corniglia took us between an hour and a half to two hours to complete and I loved every second. After a ten minute picture and water break in Corniglia we started off on the trail again, this time for the town of Vernazza.

the beautiful blue water down below

Vernazza in the background… Monterosso in the distance

Vernazza!!

The hike to Vernazza took about an hour to an hour and a half, but wasn’t nearly as intense as the hike to Corniglia. In Vernazza we stopped for lunch where I had a delicious pasta with pesto (pesto is what the region is known for!) and Cailin got fish (with the head still attached… gross!!). After lunch we took our final leg of the hike, which was by far the hardest of the day… but only because of the filling lunch, the heat, and the tourists that had filled up the trails as it got later in the day.

all sweaty and gross from the hike haha… but Cailin and I still managed to make friends with the older Australian couple at the table next to us!

looking back on Vernazza from the trail to Monterosso

Monterosso! the end is in sight…

we survived! and rewarded ourselves with a trip to the beach 🙂

After 5 to 6 hours of hiking, we had finally made it to Monterosso! We were happy, sweaty, and running on only adrenaline, but there was still more to do! We relaxed for a while in the water, enjoying its cool temperature. Then we bought cheesy t-shirts and went to a cafe overlooking the water for dinner.

after our dip in the sea

I didn’t bring a bathing suit to Italy with me… so yes, I rocked the sports bra, tiger towel, and sneakers look like no one else 😉

our touristy t-shirts are extra cheesy because we match

Besides the hiking itself, my favorite part was the passing conversations we had with strangers. We’d say hello (in multiple languages–I spoke 3 languages within 15 minutes!), talk about the distance to the next town, and even cheer each other on as we passed each other. One woman saw my BC shirt and told me that she graduated from the nursing school at BC many years ago. A few couples stopped to ask us about what we were studying. Other students would yell out asking if we knew so-and-so who goes to BC. One Notre Dame fan even started shouting “Go Irish!!” as he ran up the stairs past us. It was such a sense of camaraderie among all these people whom I had never met nor would I ever meet again. It was exciting just to share this moment and experience with them. [These moments were only present among the morning crowd though–the early risers and go-getters were much friendlier than the very “touristy” people who hiked in the afternoon (they obviously just went to say that they had hiked part of it and didn’t actually care about the hike itself).]

I’d tell you more about this adventure but I honestly can’t find the words to describe it. All I can say is that this is one of the best things, if not THE best thing, that I’ve ever done. If you ever get the chance, come to the Cinque Terre and hike the whole trail. It’s difficult, but the views and experience with nature are definitely worth it.