Cinque Terra

Hello everyone, you know it's been a while since you've done a post when you receive an email from a friend asking " where are you? and are you Ok? . . . 

Yes I am okay and I haven't been kidnapped by some dashing young Italian man . . . LOL 

I Ve been hanging out with my own wonderful Italian man.

When we arrived at Cinque Terra we discovered that we would not have access to wi-fi. With only the occasional cafe having some wifi available. This made it very difficult to do blogposts. We spent three wonderful days and nights in Cinque terra, which I will tell you more about in a minute. 

After Cinque Terra we spent five days with Gadgets family and from the time we rose to the time we went to bed we were surrounded by a very loving and excited  family so I felt it would be very anti - social to disappear to update my blog and we often collapsed in bed exhausted at night after longs days out discovering Tuscany,  the family way.

So I took a mini blog break. But I m back and am actually currently in Rome and have just spent the past hour or so creating my first Rome post (as I wanted to document the details of the day so I wouldn't forget them) But for the sake of chronological accuracy I want to blog about what I ve seen in the past 8 days I was not blogging. So hopefully over the next few days there will be a series of post in quick succession. I hope . . . . . 

Cinque Terra

The Cinque Terre are a group five centuries-old seaside villages on the rugged Italian Riviera coastline. In each of the 5 towns, there are colorful houses , with ancient vineyards clinging to steep terraces above the towns and colourful fishing boats bobbing in the harbours below. The cinque terra are almost unable to be reached by car ( except Vernazza, but the road is very narrow)  so access to this village is by train from Le Spezia. The train line links all five villages and mainly passes through a series of tunnels. A ferry service also links four of the five villages, unfortunately when we were there the seas were a little rough and the ferry service was only recommenced on our last day, so we didn't get to use it. 

This is the view from our apartment in Vernazza on the day we arrived, it was a very cold windy stormy day, with the seas crashing over the break wall. On the hillside behind the town you can see the terraced vineyards.

Riomaggiorre

On our second day the sun came out

Riomaggiorre is the first town you reach when travelling from Le Spezia. It appeared to be the largest of the five ( although as Monterrossi was quiet spread out it was hard to Judge)  as you can see the village was filled with cute little colourful houses and you can just make out the vineyards as well.  We had a lovely chat with an elderly fellow, who was very keen to tell us stories about his village, 

and advise of what to see.

Manarola 

The second town on the train line, Manarola was a really cute little spot. On our second day in the Cinque Terra we caught the train first to Riomaggiorre then to Manarola we wandered through the little villages, discovering their little shops and admiring the houses. At Manarola we took  the steep path upwards to a little cafe on the hillside overlooking the town ( pretty much the view in the second image) where we had a lovely lunch enjoying the view. Unfortunately gadget did a me and left his glasses behind and we only discovered this when we were back near the railway station so we had to climb all the way back up to retrieve them . . . Thankfully they were there and we caught the next train. We planned to head to Corniglia the next town but decided to head home to Vernazza for a quiet afternoon instead.

Vernazza 

Vernazza Is the fourth village on the train line and our home in Cinque Terra

The view from the Castillo (castle)  looking down over Vernazza, see the cute little church on the waters edge . . . . . 

The view from the break wall looking back onto the village

One of the many seafood cafes / restaurants in Vernazza. We dined here the evening after our visit to Riomaggiorre and Manarola. We had the most amazing seafood. With the most amazing view.

Couldn't not pop this image in . . . 

Monterosso al Mare

The beach at Monterrossi, even though it was still a little cool in my opinion there were plenty of tourists happy to play in the ocean and sunbaking on the sand.

One of the lovely streets of the old town of Monterrossi ( there is a newer area as well ) we ended up dining in a lovely little cafe, just off the Main Street in the old area, as I was all seafood ed  out by this point I had a very delicious pear and Parmesan ravioli with a cream and cheese sauce , whilst gadget had a wonderful seafood dish.

We really used this time to relax a bit, I managed to get a fair bit of knitting done , but we really managed to spend a fair bit of time sitting relaxing sipping wine  and chatting about our adventures so far and chatting with other tourists about their adventures.

The Cinque Terra is a really lovely spot and gadget and I were totally charmed by the cute little villages. Definetly on our to see again list.

Ciao 

Googy Girl