5. The Cinque Terre

Hello World!

Yet again, we've arrived safely on Friday so it's time for me to bring you another post.

This time I am going to take you to a place I wanted to show last week but we know what happened. We're still staying in the holiday atmosphere, though - it probably just means that I am in a desperate need of vacation.

Actually, it is kind of funny, because cinque in Italian means five and this is my fifth blog entry. Coincidence? I THINK NOT.

Anyway. Last year I spent 2 weeks in Italy with my parents, in the region of Tuscany. I've always had this advantage when visiting Italy that my parents' very close friend (so close that I have called him my uncle from the very beginning) lives in Pisa so as a kid, I was there during several of my summer vacation. It also means that we have a local guy there so he often knows some tricks, can help you with accommodation or travelling plans. It's nice, isn't it?

This time we had a clear plan of what we wanted to see. I had the Cinque Terre in my head for a while back then. I've seen it over the Internet, the 'Instagramable' colourful, little towns (villages?) located on cliffs right by the sea, and I got absolutely crazy about it. It was on my photography bucket list and let me tell you one thing - I was absolutely not disappointed. If you don't know that region, I hope my photos will give you at least a glimpse of what it looks like in real life. You can also check out my IG for more every-day shots (:

Fun fact: my profile picture, which can be seen at the very top of every post, was also taken in one of the cities of the Cinque Terre - Vernazza!

We stayed in Levanto, very near from the actual Cinque Terre. The whole region is a National Park so you need to buy a ticket in order to be able to visit it legally. Fortunately, they have a very nice offer that contains a 24h train ticket (which is the best way of communicating, if you want to visit all five villages in one day) and the entry pass to the park.

Our plan was to spend around 2 hours max in each village to finish with a sunset in the last one. We started with Monterosso, which wasn't my favourite one. Don't get me wrong - it really is beautiful, I think I just didn't have enough time to explore it.

We didn't spend that much time in this one, which I kind of regret because there were many tiny, narrow streets one could get lost in and I think this could have been fun. But we had in mind that we still have 4 other places to see so we grabbed our stuff and went to the jewel in the crown - Vernazza. From the very beginning, I knew this was the place I wanted to see the most. And I wasn't disappointed.

One thing I didn't know until I got there was that the patron saint of this town is... Saint Marta. There is a chapel dedicated to her and it is the cutest representation of this saint I have seen in my life.

This second photo is basically the reason why I wanted to go there in the first place, but, taking it was super tricky. It took a lot of determination from my side to find where is the viewing spot and to climb there (it was super hot and we climbed super high). But it was totally worth it.

The next village, Corniglia, is cheating a bit because it is located on top of a mountain and not right by the sea. But it is super cute. And the slushy (or how they call it, granita) made of local lemons - I am drooling only by thinking of it.

Next village is Manarola. I liked this one the least because it is tiny and there were hundreds of people squeezed in it. It felt super uncomfortable so we ran away from it but it looks really amazing on photos.

There is a trail between Manarola and Riomaggiore which goes by the sea and is quite short but, unfortunately, it was being repaired when we visited the region. It got reopened in Autumn last year, so if you ever go there - let me know if it's nice!

Riomaggiore was the spot we ended with, even though, it it technically, the first village of the Cinque Terre. The thing is, I had this plan to catch the sunset in its bay and it is very trendy to eat pizza there (we weren't the only people to do so). One thing I'd like to say here - after 10 hours of walking, when you sit down by the sea, even the most crappy food tastes like straight from the Michelin-star restaurant. But, somehow, the Italians have this trick up their sleeve that even the most basic pizza tastes like heaven. It's crazy. I may show you some behind the scenes photos at the end of this series, so that you see my culinary experiences.

As we still had some time to waste, we decided to rest for a bit and go around the town next. We ended up finding this lovely spot, Fuori Rotta, where my mum and I took some time to sip lazily the local white wine. If you ever visit Riomaggiore, make sure you go there! Can you imagine that the vines growing on the hillsides overlooking the sea catch the salt from it and so the wine made from them has this little salty aftertaste? Mind. Blown.

We weren't very lucky with the sunset as there were some clouds on the horizon that day. In fact, there were clouds on the horizon whenever we went to see some sunset during our stay, so it is either us or a regional characteristic (;

That's all for today. Let me know what you think in the comments section!

Till next time!

M.