The Cinque Trail

(Thursday, April 1 - Saturday, April 3)

We checked out of our hostel Thursday morning and headed to Mario and Jessica’s hotel. We dropped our bags off and made our way past the Duomo and to the Uffizi Gallery. There was a really long line since the doors had not even opened yet so we decided to let line dwindle down a bit and check out the Ponte Vecchio bridge and the Pitti Palace (it looks like a big fort). Once we found the Palace, we saw on a map that some cool gardens were nearby so we decided to go and check those out too. We made it to the Boboli Gardens to find that there was a 10 Euro entry fee. For a bunch of plants? No thanks, we‘ve got kudzu! We turned around then headed back toward the Uffizi Gallery to check and see how the line was looking now that it was open. We got there only to find that there was now a 2 hour wait time to get inside. Pssh, we got a train to catch to Cinque Terre, yo! Sorry ‘bout ya, Uffizi.

We made our way back to Mario and Jessica’s hotel and Mario ran over to the train station to check on train times while the rest of us went to email our new pal, Pall, our Cinque Terre expert and also use the time to research hostels. In our email to Pall, we said that we were planning to spend the next 2 nights in Cinque Terre and would book a hostel before we left. We sent the email and got to talking with Jessica and totally forgot to look up hostels! By the time Mario got back, it was getting close to go-time so we packed up our things and planned on finding a hostel via internet or via Pall once we arrived. We got to the train station and bought our tickets and had about 25 minutes to kill so we each split up to get some lunch to take on the train. Mario and Jessica went to a sandwich shop in the station while the Woodmere Gang headed to those loyal golden arches yet again. Bah dah bah bah bah - we’re lovin’ it! Rachael’s line seemed to be going faster so Katie went ahead to grab seats on the train with Mario and Jessica while Rachael was left on food transport duty. The line took for-ever and by the time she ordered and got their food, she only had 5 minutes left! Fortunately, Mickey D’s has had the foresight to create big bags to hold the food and drinks, making it easier to run through train stations…which is exactly what Rachael did. So, imagine if you will, Rachael, with her big ‘ol backpack, running through the Florence train station, ticket in one hand, a bag fulla sunshine in the other, sprinting and dodging fellow travelers, leaping over baby strollers and midgets and just when she stops to catch her breath, she feels someone taking her food - it’s Mario! It’s become a relay race of Olympic torch proportions! We ran and ran and made it to the train just in the nick of time. We ate our lunch on the train, napped a bit, and checked our email on Rachael’s phone real quick to see that Pall had emailed us back. He said that he lived in Riomaggiore and to give him a holler once we got in.

We changed trains in Sarzana to head to Cinque Terre. We saw that our stop in Riomaggiore was only one stop away so we stood up and collected our things and stood in the exit pod to wait when all of a sudden, there was a break in the tunnel and on the left we caught the most beautiful view of the ocean! You could hear everyone in the train car gasp in awe. We stood with cameras ready, hoping to get another glimpse of that brilliant blue but our train went back into another a tunnel, so we only got little flashes. Our train finally stopped in Riomaggiore and as soon as we got off the train, we had another stunning view of the Mediterranean.

After snapping a couple of photos, we called up Pall to let him know we were at the train station and to see if he could meet up with us to discuss what we could do while here. Turns out he lives pretty much across the street from the train station and could see the ocean too. We met up and told him that we didn’t get a chance to book a place to stay yet and asked if he could help us. He called up some friends of his and couldn’t seem to get in contact with anyone, so we sent Mario and Katie to the Internet café at the train station to research hotels and hostels while Rachael and Jessica stayed to chat with Pall. Turns out, Pall lived in Sarasota too so he and Jessica had lots to talk about. Katie and Mario returned about 30 minutes later with defeated faces. Turns out, it’s hard to book a place in Cinque Terre the Thursday before Easter! All of Italy actually has a four day weekend during Easter - they get that Friday and Monday off. It’s big vacation time for them and we’re in a big vacation area. Things were not looking up for our gang. Pall made one last phone call to a friend who finally did pick up. Turns out he had 8 beds available and would let us stay (hurray!) We hiked and hiked up all 50 steps to Antony’s apartment. He lives on the top floor of a building in Riomaggiore and has converted the two rooms below his into a dorm. We dropped our stuff off, freshened up a bit, and met Pall downstairs to start touring around his hometown. He took us down to the Riomaggiore marina which had tons of little boats and a fantastic view of the ocean.

We then went to grab a little bite to eat where Pall told us about the different trails we could hike with or without him. He said that the lower trail is easier but is packed with tourists. He prefers the more difficult trail that is much higher up where you usually don’t see another soul for miles. After eating, Pall showed us around some more. We went to some great lookout points around the village and took lots of pics.

We ended up back near our “hostel” and decided to meet back up with Pall for dinner in Manarola at a restaurant he kept raving about. We had about 2 hours to kill and we were all exhausted after running around Florence that morning so we decided it would be a great time to nap. So we did. And it was awesome. We got going and met Pall over by the Riomaggiore train station and we all walked to Manarola. That part of the trail is all paved and wide enough for baby strollers and runners and is part of the Cinque Trail (as we have named it). It was an easy 20-25 minute walk.

We eventually made our way to Il Porticciolo, a restaurant near the bay of Manarola. Pall kept saying that we have to try the seafood here because it’s the best. We ordered an appetizer sampler plate full of swordfish, mussels, octopus, cuttlefish, anchovies (one in lemon and the other super salty) and garlic cloves that were mild enough to be eaten whole. We loved it! After enjoying our delicious appetizers, and finishing our first bottle of wine, we ordered another bottle of vino and some delicious spaghetti pesto. Pesto actually comes from the Cinque Terre region, so if there is any place to get you some good pesto, it’s Cinque Terre. While dining, Katie noticed that at the table behind us, there was an American family. One of their kids, about 10 years old, was dressed head to toe in green. Green scarf, green hat, green shirt, green pants, green sunglasses. We named her Kermit.

However, we began to love Kermit even more when she opened her mouth and with an awesome lisp said “Mom, I think I’m gonna have the thpagetthi with peth-to.” WIN. The best was probably once she got her food, saw the amazingly green pesto spaghetti on her plate and said (read it with a lisp y’all - it‘s the quote of the day)

“Mom, this peth-to has pine nut-th in it. It-th not edible”

We just about died trying to contain our laughter. After enjoying our pesto spaghetti AND pine nuts, which were quite edible, we ordered dessert. Boy are we glad we did. Mario and Jess ordered the tiramisu while we ordered some delicious thing with Nutella. However, Mario and Jessica’s tiramisu was the best. Not just any good tiramisu - this was the best tiramisu any of us had ever tasted. We had found THE PERFECT tiramisu - who knew it was hiding in Manarola? Everyone had to order another round. Overall, it was probably the best dinner we have had yet on our trip, if not our lives. Everything was delicious! We went to pay and bought Pall his dinner as a thank you for showing us around town and finding us a place to lay our heads. We made our way back to Riomaggiore and bid adieu to Pall then went to sleep. We woke up early and decided to take Pall’s advice to do the lower trails through Cinque Terre. We got moving, each packed some water, Gatorade and a bottle of wine to share (just in case), and were out the door by 9am. We grabbed some croissants to go and started walking. We made it to Manarola in no time at all, it was a really easy walk and all paved.

We walked around to some other parts of Manarola so that we could see it in the daytime, then started to make our way to the next town of Corniglia. We learned real quick that the path between Riomaggiore and Manarola is the only paved portion of the Cinque Trail. The path to Corniglia was all dirt and a lot of uphill with a beautiful view of the Mediterranean! Once we got closer to the town, there was a point where you could either take a bus up to the town or hike up 365 stairs.

Mario and Rachael were feeling energetic and did the stair master together while Jessica and Katie took the bus. Once we all met back up, we took a gelato break together then began to make our way to Vernazza for lunch. We walked pass vineyards and olive tree groves and made our way to the top of a lookout point and found an amazing view of Corniglia behind us.

We kept hiking, and hiking and hiking and finally made it to the down hill portion toward Vernazza. To celebrate, and because we were in desperate need of some magical juice, we sat down and cracked open the bottle of wine we had brought with us. It was exactly what we needed to make it down through the last half hour of our hike into Vernazza.

We made it down into Vernazza and had only one thing on our mind: FOOD. We picked up some foccacia bread with tomatoes and pesto and munched on that while trying to track down a restaurant. We eventually made our way to the Vernazza marina and found a restaurant where we could eat outside. We dined on bruschetta, pesto and pasta. It was delicious! After the successful tiramisu we had the previous night, we just had to try this restaurant’s version. It was a huge disappointment. Right then and there we decided we had to go back to Il Porticciolo in Manarola for dinner and eat their tiramisu again. After lunch, we decided we needed to let our food digest and take a quick power nap in the sun at the marina Vernazza.

While napping, Mario and Rachael got to talking and realized that we were losing Katie and Jessica quick and we had to get them to hike to the last village no matter what! After about 15 minutes, we woke up Katie and Jessica to get moving again. We took some quick pictures around the village then started making our way up one mo’ time.

We made our way past the vineyards and olive trees, past the cliffs and valleys, past the magnificent ocean views, over the hills and through the woods. Rachael was trailing in the back taking pictures and in the distance, with a huge valley in between them, she spotted Katie! Rachael did her best hybrid crow-rooster impersonation and “kaw-kawed” at Katie from across the valley. Katie heard and “kaw-kawed” back at Rachael. It was a beautiful thing.

We continued hiking and got to some portions of the trail that were just wide enough for one foot, giant boulders that rolled after us if we touched golden monkeys, pits of snakes and perilous cliffs until finally, we could see in the distance the beaches of Monterosso. Ok, that’s a bit exaggerated, but there were definitely some portions of the trail that tested our Indiana Jones capabilities, but don’t worry - no snakes or monkeys.

We got to the end of the trail and Rachael was the last one out. Jessica and Katie were there, singing the Rocky theme for all that were exiting the trail. The three of us headed toward the train station to find Mario who had left earlier to purchase his and Jessica’s train tickets to Milan for the next day. While sitting and waiting, we examined Katie’s awesome Merrel knock-off shoes that she purchased at Bass Pro for $25. They were broken. The Cinque Trail devoured Katie’s shoes!

We met up with Mario and went on to explore Monterosso and had some smoothies and piña coladas from a guy that looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger and was a huge country music fan. He was rocking out to Alan Jackson when we came in and he and Katie immediately bonded. After the bonding, we walked around and found a neighborhood with some sweet houses and even better views of Cinque Terre and the Mediterranean. We found a good spot and took a group pic of the 4 of us.

We then made our way back to the town and decided to go and eat dinner again at Il Porticciolo in Manarola. We saw that the train to Manarola would not be leaving for another hour so we went back to see Arnold and split some beers.

We hopped on the train to Manarola and were talking about what an amazing day we had. The weather was perfect! Blue skies all day, not too hot with just the right breeze to cool you off when you needed it. What is amazing about the Cinque Terre hike is that each view you see is more beautiful than the one you saw 5 minutes before. Every turn in the trail, every single view and the sound of the ocean crashing on the rocks below was just absolutely breathtaking. Everyone that we ran into on the trail was in the best mood - and how could you not be? We were looking at the most beautiful and amazing views that we had ever seen! If people were singing a song, we’d sing along with them as we crossed paths. Needless to say, the Rocky theme was the most popular by the day’s end. If someone needed a hand climbing down some stairs, you helped. If anyone had a camera out you offered to take pictures. It was the most perfect, beautiful, blue sky, no clouds in sight, kind of day and we loved it. We made it to Manarola and grabbed a seat at Il Porticciolo. The owner even recognized us from the night before! We ordered our food (which was delish) but we were all really holding out for that fabulous tiramisu.

We each ordered our own and were in heaven. We even ordered a fifth for us to share- it was that good. After eating, we walked back to Riomaggiore and hiked up to our “hostel” and passed out. It was a perfect day.

We woke up Saturday morning and bid farewell to Mario and Jessica (we miss you guys!), packed up our things and then headed off to the train station to research hostels in Sorrento. We could not find a single place available for Saturday night anywhere in all of Italy. Who knew the day before Easter everything would be sold out in Italy? By this point it was about 10:30 am. We went back to our “hostel” and asked the owner if we could stay for one more night. He said of course, so we went back into our room and went back to sleep…until 3pm! I guess we needed it! We then woke up and hopped on a train to Vernazza to go eat at the restaurant where we had had lunch the day before. We each ordered bruschetta and the pesto lasagna. We went to explore Vernazza a bit more then headed up to the train platform to hop on the next train to Monterosso so we could go see Arnold and his smoothies again. The trains do not stop here as often. While we were waiting in the platform, we were both hit with a big ‘ol wave of exhaustion and decided to head back to Riomaggiore and just veg for the rest of the day. Apparently our bodies were mad at us for the beatings we gave them while on the Cinque Trail! We went back and stayed in for the rest of the night then went to sleep.