If you’re new here, I’ve been sharing photos of my honeymoon in Italy until the wedding ’season’ starts up again. This blog is fairly new so there are a couple of engagement shoots up, otherwise my best wedding work is on the main site
So – we’d visited the first two of the five villages of cinque terre and today we were setting out for the next two. The trails in between each village get progressively more difficult – knowing that, we set out on the last of the paved part and set out toward Corniglia. A look back at Manarola:
and a look ahead to Corniglia. If you look off into the distance, notice how the village is on top of the cliff…
and so we walked, for about 35 minutes and got to the base of a staircase of sorts, and a sign. We had a choice: walk for 15 minutes, or take the free bus. “15 minutes?” we thought “how bad can it be?”
382 steps later… Somehow we did it in 10 minutes, but it felt much much longer. We took a short breather once we finally got to the top and took some time to explore Corniglia. We stopped for some sandwiches and spent some time at a lookout point, just admiring the view of the Mediterranean Sea. It was around 1pm and getting hot in a hurry when we decided to tackle the next part of the trail and head to Vernazza.
Again, we knew this trail was going to be more difficult, but when we finally got to Vernazza, the path to Corniglia was like a walk in the park! Note the absence of a guard rail.
It’s hard to appreciate just how steep a dropoff there is there. The views of the sea would make it worth it, and you never feel like you have to hang on for dear life, except maybe when you have to negotiate the path with people coming from the opposite direction. About an hour into the trail, there was something of a rest stop – a small cafe overlooking the sea. We stopped in for a snack and a much-needed drink. It was getting really hot and the breeze coming off the Sea and through this window was a welcome reprieve.
And then we continued on – we twisted and turned, wove and wound, went up and down stairs and followed trails that were barely there, and another half hour later: Vernazza – finally within reach (and one of my favourite photos of the entire trip).
We took our time here. Vernazza is a beautiful beautiful place. We explored around of course, but one of the things Leah was most looking forward to was getting a chance to take a dip in the Mediterranean Sea. So she did, and we got some ice cream and wrote our names in the sand, and spent some time sitting enjoying the sun and the breeze.
Once the clouds started to roll in, we spent some more time looking around, paying a visit to the watchtower at the very tip of the village. We’d decided we weren’t going to tackle the last of the paths to the fifth village (apparently, the most difficult and least rewarding), but it was too early for dinner so we stopped in at a restaurant overlooking the sea for a cold drink.
We decided to take the ferry back, to be able to see where we’d been, and to see just how far we’d traveled by foot. Well worth the small cost – especially since it had started raining a bit. This is the view of Manarola from the ferry. And yes, it’s every bit as idyllic as it looks.
and back on solid ground.
Once we got back, we spent some time walking around Manarola a bit – poking around some of the small shops but we were both pretty exhausted. We headed back to our room for a short nap, and got up just in time to watch the sunset from our balcony. Of all the things we got to see in Italy, this is one of the things I miss the most.
Dinner time. Being right on the mediterranean, I was on a mission to find some fresh seafood. We finished off the night at a small restaurant owned by the people who also happen to own the room we were staying in. I ordered up fresh crab linguine, followed by squid on a skewer with salad, topped off with a bottle of local white wine. mmmm…
If there is a heaven, it’s probably in cinque terre. It was a long day, but we took our time leaving the restaurant and getting back up to our room – hoping to prolong the experience. Of course we were looking forward to the rest of the trip, but leaving such an amazing place is always disappointing. All the more so considering what we discovered on the way to Venice…
mike
by mike
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