Cinque Terre is beautiful. Quaint, colourful, adorable little towns perched on peaks and steep hillsides above the ocean. Sunsets to die for. But mostly we will remember the stairs.
This is the perfect place for amazing hikes, and there are gorgeous footpaths that connect all 5 towns. Unfortunately for us, not a single one of the more direct town routes were open - all being closed for maintenance or damage of some kind. No wonder, considering the blistering amount of tourist traffic this place sees every year. It’s just that we weren’t gonna NOT hike while we were here - despite what the first entire day of biblically torrential rain and cataclysmic wind had to say - so all that was left to us was the secondary routes which wind waaaaaaaayyy up into the mountains and involved an eye-watering amount of ancient and very tall and steep stone stairs.
We were sore for days. In fact as I write this in Venice the night before our flight home, my calves are still aching and have been punishing me with every single one of the insane number of tiny bridges I have traversed in the last four days.
All to say, we had an amazing time in Cinque Terre! 10/10 would recommend.
The view from our window day 1
Not much to do today except wander the wet streets of Corniglia and find coffee :D
Day 2 dawns much nicer, and we are off on an adventure to the two southern towns of Manorola and Riomaggiore
Corniglia and the ripe oranges and lemons I could never reach - ARG!
The monorail system local farmers use to get up and down their incredibly steep crop fields
Already feeling some doubt…
High above and not even kinda almost there
Super having a good time! We love to sweat
Descent into Manorola
This climb literally took all four limbs
Cory’s WTF face
Worth it though, amiright? Riomaggiore :)
We took the train home to Corniglia, and ended our journey with the million steps from the station to the town. Awesome finish and feeling strong!
Orange liquor with the sunset. Me and Cloé used to drink limoncino here, so it’s kind of tradition now.
I know it looks like I’m doing weird things to this cat, but we were actually very good friends!