Cinque Terre
We don’t love waking up at 6am, but we were sure that today would be worth it. We quickly got ready and then sleepwalked to the meeting point and boarded the bus to La Spezia. When we reached La Spezia, we were hurried off the bus and onto a train to Manarola.
Manarola is gorgeous and, after getting coffee and croissants at the only cafe open, we wandered along to water to look at the gorgeous buildings from the coast and then wandered up their Main Street to see the water from higher up.
The second town we visited was Monterosso which had a lot more to see but was slightly less pretty. We wandered along the water for a bit and got a gelato to share before heading back to the meeting point to go to lunch. On top of the food, the meal included bottomless wine and water which was a major plus. The first course of lunch was a seafood salad which had an impressive variety of seafood over a bed of lettuce with olives and tomatoes. The seafood was amazing and very fresh. It was also very cool to get to try small amounts of all different local seafoods including octopus and mussels cooked 2 different ways. The second course was homemade pasta with a pesto sauce (the pesto here is amazing) which was even better than the seafood salad. The final course was panna cotta which was the perfect end of the meal before we rushed out to explore the rest of the city before the meeting time.
Instead of a train, we changed it up and took a boat from Monterosso to Vernazza which gave us a gorgeous view of both cities but also was so shaky that we both ended up getting a little nauseous (especially because it was right after lunch). It was a lot of fun to be on the water but the boat was tilting almost 45 degrees from side to side.
Luckily, it wasn’t a very long ride and we arrived in Vernazza to another beautiful town. The temperature had been rising all day and we still hadn’t been in the water so we decided it was a good stop to wade into the water to try to cool off. We were a little disappointed that none of the stops gave us enough time to really swim (and then dry off) but we had a good time sitting on a rock with our feet in. We also got some time to stroll through the town before we had to meet at the train station.
The last town that visited was Riomaggiore. We didn’t get to see Corniglia, but we didn’t mind too much because it is primarily (if not entirely) the national park so we wouldn’t be able to see much without the park ticket and we wouldn’t have time to explore the park if we did have the ticket. In Riomaggiore, we started by wandering down to the harbor and taking in the view of the water. We decided it was too hot to spend much time there since there wasn’t much shade so we headed over toward the old town instead and wandered in and out of shops until it was time to meet back at the train station. The tour was very no nonsense about the meeting times and even left one woman behind who didn’t make it on time (which is good for those of us who were on time). From Riomaggiore, we took the train back to La Spezia and then boarded the bus back to Florence.
Overall, the trip was amazing and we really liked the style of it. It was nice to have someone help us with the transportation, provide a few details about each city, and organize lunch, but we also loved getting to explore the cities on our own. The only thing that would’ve been better was a longer stop in any one town to be able to take some time to swim and cool off.
When we got back to Florence, we headed directly for a pizza place that was recommended to us. We were tired and getting hungry so we wanted something quick, easy, and on the way. We arrived to find it closed (even though google thought it was open- when will we learn to not trust google for restaurant hours) so we went to a different pizzeria across the street. We ordered a four cheese pizza which ended up being delicious and we left happy and fed. Back at the hostel, we quickly got ready for bed and fell asleep almost immediately. Luckily, there were no more doorbell rings!
