Cinque Terre

The other day, I said San Gimignano became my favorite town in Italy, well I think I just topped that. Cinque Terre, five lands, is an area of the region of Liguria that has been declared a National Park of some sorts. It is made up of five paesini or little towns, that are built one on top of the other on the cliffs along the bright blue Ligurian Sea.

My Italian Politics teacher, Adriano, took our class and the rest of our group for a field trip, instead of having class that day. We were up at the crack of dawn to meet him at the train station at 6:45am and just barely made it on. The long three-hour train ride took us from Florence to Pisa, then to La Spezia, then Corniglia, one of the five villages. During our stop in La Spezia, we bought panini, snacks and drinks to take with us. We were planning on doing the coastal walk, but we found out that mudslides ruined all but one of them in the fall. Luckily, there is the mountain trail that we ended up taking, and was totally worth the extra effort.

We were fortunate enough to have perfect weather for the hike. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and there was a slight breeze coming off the sea to cool us down. We hiked about two miles up steep rocky trails and along vineyards and olive orchards until we got to the highest point of the trail. The view from the top was indescribable. All around on the hillside are tiers and tiers of grape vineyards planted on terraces all the way up the mountainside. I can’t reiterate how blue the water was and how beautiful it looked in contrast to the green mountainside and the brightly colored towns perched on hillsides. It was impossible to distinguish where the sea ended and the sky started.

We made our way down along the walls of the terraces, teetering on the edge of a long fall down. After what seemed like a million steps down adjusting my legs from feeling like rubber bands, we finally arrived at the next town of Vernazza. It is a beautiful little town that has become overrun with attracting tourists. Adriano was telling us how the restaurants place boats outside their doors to make it seem like they just went fishing that morning for the day’s catch. Despite knowing it was all a ploy, several pictures were taken. The town, like most of the towns in Cinque Terre, is built on the cliff side with one building on top of the other. It was a little after noon, so we had about an hour to eat our lunches. I look the opportunity to climb out on the bright marble rocks in the middle of the cove, find a bird poop-free spot, and eat my panino right there. It was so warm I took off my socks and shoes and rolled up my pant legs. It was such a gorgeous view looking up at the town and the vertical cliff faces with the bright blue sea behind me.

We next made our way on the famous, Via dell’Amore, the road of love, that winds its way along the coast, the one path not washed out my the landslides. This path was much more manageable since it was paved with flat stone and could practically be driven on. All along the way were messages and names spray painted on the rock face of lovers who had previously made the journey. Love Locks, a very popular hobby of young couples, covered every lockable surface along the way. After only about 30 minutes, we arrived in our final destination of Riomaggiore to catch the train back to Florence. A gelato was definitely in order to cool down after the long, but beautiful hike along the most famous coast in the world.