Our final stop on our Italian adventure was the Ligurian coast of Italy. We were only in the Cinque Terre region for two days but that was enough to fall for it’s charm and beauty. What struck me about the place was the abundance of colour – bright blue hues in the beach resort town of Monterosso, to the faded pastels of Manarola to the utterly magical golden glow that covered Riomaggiore, our town of choice to watch the sunset.
We stayed in a little AirBnB in the hills above Vernazza with the friendliest Italian hosts who didn’t speak a word of English but still greeted us with a honeymoon-worthy welcome of a bunch of roses, a bottle of prosecco on ice and a plate of crisps, which we scoffed before setting off to explore…
If you’re wanting to explore the Cinque Terre – literally meaning “The Five Lands” – I would recommend you need about 3 days to explore it comfortably as we felt a wee bit rushed. There’s the five tiny villages, Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore only minutes away from each other on the handy train line that runs between each place.
Along with the coastline, the five villages make up a national park, which has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage site. Each town has it’s own individual flavour – stop for gelato on the beach in Monterosso, explore the craggy cliffs of Vernazza or stop off for a pizza and beer for lunch in the tiny fishing village port of Riomaggiore (make sure you try the ‘pesto’ pizza – the region is famous for it’s pesto).
Unfortunately for us, there was a mix-up in communication and we got told the train wasn’t running that day – but in fact they meant that some of the hiking routes were closed instead so we had to drive between each village; which is NOT recommended! It’s a 30-45 min round drive through some pretty hairy roads and there is incredibly limited parking at each town, so definitely use the train to explore if you can. For the active amongst my readers, make sure you also read up on the hiking routes in the area – there’s differing difficulty levels within the hikes that pretty much connect all of the towns, so pop on your comfiest trainers and walk your way around the coastline. Sadly we didn’t have time for this but on our next journey it’s something we’ll definitely do as the views coming around the coast will be spectacular.
One thing I must mention is the Via Dell Amore, the ‘walk of love’ (the hike between Riomaggiore and Manarola) is NOT OPEN – no amount of internet research into my Cinque Terre trip seemed to tell us this fact and was a real disappointment to us – and many others – on the day. So just be mindful of that if you’re planning on that particular hike, as we were, and simply hop on the train instead which takes all of 3 minutes!
We watched the sun setting on an incredible couple of weeks living ‘la dolce vita’, where we’d made lifetime memories and discovered places we already can’t wait to go back and visit.
You can find out all the information on how to travel to the region on the official website here.
Have you ever been to Cinque Terre before?
LMNH x
