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Cinque Terre

Less adventure, more Italy!

By Northern Adventures

Introduction

(Thu Mar 24th - Tue Mar 29TH, 2016)

The Cinque Terre (Ligurian: Çinque Tære, meaning “Five Lands“) is a rugged portion of coast on the Italian Riviera. It's located in the Liguria region of Italy, to the west of the city of La Spezia, and comprises five villages: Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore.

The coastline, the five villages, and the surrounding hillsides are all part of the Cinque Terre National Park and are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Over the centuries, people have carefully built terraces on the rugged, steep landscape right up to the cliffs that overlook the sea. Part of its charm is the lack of visible corporate development. Paths, trains and boats connect the villages, and cars can hardly reach them from the outside. The Cinque Terre is a very popular tourist destination.

We opted for a short visit of the marvellous area during the Easter break; at the end of March, we hoped for bearable crowds and pleasant early spring weather suitable for hiking.

Also, we wanted to add a little bit more than just the famous (and short) Sentiero Azzurro (”The Blue Trail”) - the paths in the hills above the villages looked inviting as well. Finally, we also decided to visit Portofino and the surrounding peninsula of Parco Naturale Regionale di Portofino during the last two days of our trip.

Our (hiking) itinerary was as follows: Riomaggiore -> Manarola -> Corniglia -> Manarola -> Riomaggiore -> Ponzò -> Vernazza -> Monterosso al Mare -> Portofino -> San Fruttuoso -> Camogli.

It’s a beautiful place without any doubt; however, precise planning proved to be a strong advantage here - the crowds tend to go far beyond the norm…

Day 1: Riomaggiore, Manarola & Corniglia

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I can’t really advise to use a car as a means of transportation within Cinque Terre villages; steep and narrow roads and limited possibilities of parking lead us to strong preference of railways.

So, we flew to Genoa via Munich and took a train to Riomaggiore where we spent a night in a pre-booked bed & breakfast accommodation.

The following morning we set out on the trail in the direction towards Manarola across the ridge in the western direction (the coastal “blue” path was closed due to landslides).

In the mornings (and evenings), the coastal villages are not (yet) crowded; thus, mornings and evenings are the most pleasant time to explore these picturesque settlements.

It was a pleasant though a bit (just a bit) strenuous walk across the ridge to Manarola and then towards Corniglia (the only one of the villages without a direct sea access).

Here, the things became crowded, and leaving Corniglia back to Manarola via the (closed) “blue” path seemed to be the best idea; however, the path proved to be really impassable due to very severe landslides - simply, the path disappeared into the sea.

So, finally, we opted for train, and spent a lovely evening hour in Manarola, arguably the most picturesque of the Cinque Terre villages.

In Riomaggiore, we enjoyed blue hour of upcoming twilight in the small and lovely harbour.

With herds of day-trippers already gone, only tens of people remained in the village, usually occupying small cosy restaurants and enjoying tasteful Liguarian (sea)food.

The delicate and touching magic of Cinque Terrre was fully awaken during twilight… and only lasted to early morning, not later. Good to know when planning the trip.

Day 2: From Riomaggiore to Ponzò

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Sunrise and early morning in Riomaggiore… such a beautiful time!

I was in the small harbour alone, maybe except for a few locals walking their dogs and a brave couple of older tourists “enjoying” a morning sea swimming (it was March, remember! :-)).

After breakfast, we quickly left Riomaggiore behind, following a steep cobbled track to the hills in the northern direction.

For a short 5-days trip, we only had small backpacks; still, in constant sunlight and quite a steep climb of 600+ vertical meters, it was a nice morning exercise.

Not surprisingly, we were hiking in the hills (almost) alone - the vast majority of tourist naturally prefers seaside areas (that tend to go either very crowded or extremely crowded, rarely anything less than that).

We hiked through a few small villages, usually surprising the locals not used to visitors outside the summer season - such is the difference between coastal Cinque Terre and its hilly upland areas.

In Ponzò, we stayed in a beautiful bed & breakfast “Domus Antiqua” accommodation; the hosts were kind enough to give us a lift to a not-so-closely located trattoria for a dinner.

Day 3: From Ponzò to Monterosso al Mare

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It was a beautiful sunny morning in the silent and sleepy outpost of Ponzò.

With the weather forecast promising some afternoon rain, we quickly set out on the trail towards Bovecchio, and then further southwest to Vernazza.

Sometimes, we were hiking on narrow local forest footpaths; offline map in my iPhone proved to be quite useful on several occasions since some of those tracks are overgrown with vegetation and rarely used.

There were some nice views of Corniglia during our descent - however with a few brief moments of sunshine the views of Vernazza were those that were arguably even more beautiful.

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Vernazza was *horribly* crowded around lunch time. I mean it.

We ate a (surprisingly tasteful) pizza we got from a local small place, and set out on the “blue” path towards Monterosso al Mare as soon as possible.

Here, we had to pay the ridiculous “entrance fee” ransom of the Sentiero Azzurro trail; is this really necessary, in the area like this one? With all those tourist traps around, to still pay some extra money? “This would never happen in the deep north”, was the sentence that rapidly came into my mind here…

Beautiful views were often replaced by bizarre encounters: I had met a guy hiking with an umbrella on Kungsleden trail close to Abisko in Lapland, Sweden, however meeting Japanese or Chinese tourists in suits, designer clothes and even coats (it was warm and sunny!) was another level of ridiculousness - I was wondering why people are sometimes making their lives (so) difficult.

Of course, a few times we met Chinese couples making their wedding photographs, a recent very popular “invention”, or “cultural difference” :-).

From Monterosso al Mare, we took an evening train to Rapallo where we spent the next two nights.

Day 4: Parco Naturale Regionale di Portofino

We took a morning ferry ride from Rapallo to Portofino via Santa Margherita Ligure; a nice journey with fine views of the coastal settlements with beautiful harbours, old quarters, and colourful houses.

Portofino itself is one of those picture-postcard coastal villages that is very hard not to fall in love with.

Sure, one shouldn’t fall into obvious tourist traps in the town centre, and rather venture to the Portofino castle (Castello Brown) for fine panoramic views of the picturesque settlement.

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We wanted to explore at least a part of the Portofino peninsula on foot, and thus decided to pursue a short hike to San Fruttuoso abbey, a beautiful bay with a monastery that may only be visited on foot or by boat.

It was a nice walk with some solitude and fine views, and after two hours we finally reached the beautiful and isolated bay.

Here, we spent a few hours just enjoying the weather, sun, sea, perfect cobbled beach, and far-before-the-season atmosphere.

There were twenty or thirty other visitors - everyone seemed just happy and relaxed, enjoying the atmosphere of this serene place.

It has to be horribly crowded in the tourist season - however, at the end of March, the bay remained inviting and peaceful.

Then, we took another boat ride to Camogli, a historical seaside town located in the northwestern part of the peninsula.

Its colourful houses illuminated by afternoon sun looked like a kitsch picture postcard, and such appeared the small harbour and the beach promenade. Again, it was a real pleasure to take a short rest here: ice cream and relaxing in the evening sun… what to ask more!

Ligurian food & Cuisine

Above expectations, that’s how I would describe our culinary experience in the Cinque Terre area. Seafood was excellent at the seaside, and more down to earth local experience in the uplands.

The Ligurian cuisine formed an inseparable part of our Italian hiking experience, and it would be a big mistake to omit it; the Italians do it (usually) perfect, and combination with local wines always made for a special evening.

It was exactly like this: four special days of hiking, and four special days of an extraordinary culinary experience.

Footnotes

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FootNotes

All images are exclusive property and may not be copied, downloaded, reproduced, transmitted, manipulated or used in any way without permission of the author.

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