Never a Gray Day in Italy: Five Villages, One Name

This past weekend(March 9-11), I had the opportunity to travel to an area called Cinque Terre. It is located in northwest Italy and shares a coastline with the Ligurian Sea. Cinque Terre, meaning "five lands," is made up of five villages along the coast line. This area became well known after Rick Steve's mentioned this area in his Italy travel guide. We only visited Monterosso, Manarola and Riomaggiore because the other two towns still had a lot of damage from the flood earlier this year. Fun Fact: This area is the founding area of pesto, focaccia bread and their excellent white wine! There was also a town near Cinque Terre that was where Michealangelo bought his marble to sculpt with. Cinque Terre is known for their hiking paths and national parks, but they also have beautiful beaches. The eight of us hiked a little bit, but took advantage of the close proximity of the beaches!

Map of Cinque Terre.

On Saturday morning, we arrived to La Spezia by bus and hop on a train to Moneglia, which is a town north of Cinque Terre. This is also where our apartment was located, which was ran by the cutest elderly couple. After getting settled in, we went down into Moneglia and explored the village. We had time to kill before getting on the next train, so we hung out on the beach until then. The first village we went to was Manarola. The first order of business was to get something to eat since we were all starving! We went a small restaurant in the marina that Rick Steve's suggested to eat at called La Laterna. The patio we sat on overlooked the harbor and the fishing boats. Not only did we take advantage of the fresh pesto and focaccia bread, but also the fresh seafood. I ordered "spaghetti with fresh food," which consisted of calamari and clams. After lunch, we explored the village for a bit before traveling to the next village over called Riomaggiore. We walked into a few shops that sold different assortments of wine, olive oil and pastas.

View from our apartment in Moneglia.

Our balcony.

Elizabeth, Me and Mallory enjoying Moneglia Beach.

View from the La Laterna patio in Manarola.

Manarola.

Instead of taking a train to Riomaggiore, we decided to hike the trail that connected the two villages. The trail we hiked was called Via del Amore, meaning Lover's Lane. Needless to say the only people walking down this path were couples, go figure! The distance between the two villages was only a 20 minute walk, which wasn't bad at all. As we walked through the path, we got side tracked and walked down the off road paths that took you to the cliffs right on the coast line. Since we were all being adventurous and ambitious, we climbed down the cliffs to get a better view of the coast line. When I say cliffs, I don't mean anything extreme by any means. I climbed up and down the cliffs with a maxi dress on without any problems or tumbles.

View from Via dell Amore.

Another View of Ligurian Sea.

Holden climbing down the cliffs.

The Lover's Lane Statue.

After climbing the cliffs and finishing our walk along Lover's Lane, we finally made it to Riomaggiore. We walked around the town and walked into different stores that were selling homemade pasta, soaps and olive oils. Cinque Terre isn't known for having much of a night life or bar scene since there is a law that requires all bars to be closed by midnight. We decided to take advantage of the fresh ingredients and homemade pastas and cook dinner back at the apartment. So the nine of us bought different types of olive oils, pestos, pastas, wine, and focaccia bread for tonight's feast! After we were done collecting all of our supplies for the evening, we found a gelato shop near the marina. Of course my sweet tooth couldn't pass up a couple scoops of gelato, so I bought some and watch all of the fishing boats arrive into the marina.

Riomaggiore.

Kansas girls on the trip.

After a successful evening of pasta cooking in the "old school" apartment kitchen, we were ready for day two of Cinque Terre. We decided to visit Monterosso, which was the biggest and most north village out of the five villages. This village was also known for having a good beach, so I took advantage of that for majority of the afternoon. Right when we go off the train and left the station, the beach was right in front of us. From that second on, I knew I would be spending the rest of my afternoon there. We couldn't have asked for better weather! There was barely any clouds in the sky and it was warm enough to put our swim suits on! So until the later part of the afternoon I stayed at the beach and enjoyed the sun! Conveniently, there was a focaccia bread bakery across the street, so Elizabeth and I tried some of their bread topped with pesto and cherry tomatoes. My mouth is drooling just typing about it in this blog! For the entire afternoon, we enjoyed the beach. Even though the water was ice cold, we still got in for a bit. I'm pretty sure the locals gave us some weird looks when we got in the water! Overall Cinque Terre is a beautiful and amazing area. Even though the area is known as a place for people who love to hike, I loved this area and only trail I hiked was a pave road that took 20 minutes to walk through. Ciao!