It was early morning in La Spezia when we dragged ourselves out of bed and headed toward the train station. “Seven tickets to Riomaggiore,” we asked. Maybe in Italian. I don’t remember… we tried our best.
No one else was up in the city. Our thirty five closest friends were still abed at our hotel, but we adventurous seven planned to hit the trail before anyone else. I don’t remember if we had coffee. We got to Riomaggiore though, and we quickly explored the town. After a short meander through the tiny streets, we found the start of the hike and went on our way.
hiking cinqueterre
The first part of our hike went by quickly. The path is wide and the views are unpromising. There were few stairs and to be honest, we were booking it. Looking back, I can’t imagine why. But we got to Manarola, the second town of the trail, within a half an hour. The weather was perfect, though it got wickedly hot later on. Manarola is set into cliffs on the side of the mountains. Vineyards surround the town on three sides while the Mediterranean thunders against the rocks below.
corniglia
The next portion of the trail was a little more treacherous. We hiked up, up, up and then down, down down on these tiny little steps built into the path. Our approach into Corniglia was heralded by this weird stretch of abandoned beach houses, just between the beach on our left and the railroad above us on the right. It looked like the people just up and left: there was some construction fencing and boards all over, but we could see into some of the shacks. Plates and cups sat on the tables, newspapers lay open, children’s backpacks toppled over near unmade beds. {It was very odd, and I’ve often looked them up to find out what they were, but to no avail. If you know, please comment!}
Upon our arrival into Corniglia, we stopped for a minute to regain our breath after trekking the stairs. Corniglia was the first town we spent more than five minutes in. We decided to explore, and so we wandered up a hill into the residential part of town. An old man passing us told us to keep going, that the views up ahead were stunning. Pictures were taken, and then we walked back down to find the trail. Vernazza was our next stop.
vernazza
An hour and a half later, we arrived in Vernazza, the fourth and most picturesque of the five towns. It’s also where we started running into more and more tourists. Here we were, grimy and sweaty from our early start, and here were these wide-awake people loudly walking around in flip flops and skirts. We definitely asked ourselves how they could be walking the trails in flip flops! We walked into Vernazza around noon, so it’s where we decided to stop and have lunch. Cinqueterre is famous for its pesto, so that’s what we all ordered: pesto pastas and pizza to share. Our stomachs happily full, we opted for a lounge on the rocks before starting the hike again.
monterosso
It was a good thing we stopped, because the last section of the trail, from Vernazza to Monterosso, was all steps. We walked through vineyards, saw lemon trees, trekked past the cliff edges and signs leading to beaches down below. But after an hour or so, we could see Monterosso in the distance. It seemed to take forever to get down to the beach. She was a siren calling to us, out in the wilderness, and we were tripping over ourselves to answer her summons.
When at last we arrived at the beach, it didn’t take much persuading for us to drop our bags and shimmy out of our dusty, dirty clothes, trading sweat-laden t-shirts for skimpy bikinis and cool water. Our friends arrived through the course of an hour or so, adding their bags to our pile of stuff and joining people in the water. Some opted to swim out to the breakers; others stayed close to shore. As the sun started to drop lower in the sky, we packed our bags and left for the train.
[May 2005]