Italian Honeymooners: the Cinque Terre
Vernazza
Cinque Terre is one of Italy's best kept secrets, though American travelers are starting to recognize its enchantment and are making it more of a travel destination in recent years. When I first went to Italy in high school, I would get little response out of people when I said that I was visiting the Cinque Terre. Now, I do find that I have to explain it to a few people, but mostly people go "Ohhh wow." Because they know.
Cinque Terre, in Italian, quite literally means "five lands." Oh, be still, my heart. My romantic, literary soul just loves that. The five lands. The five lands include (from North to South): Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore. The Cinque Terre is tucked away on the coast of the Italian Riviera and is perfect for those wanting an authentic smalltown Italian experience. Scott and I are set on buying a place in Riomaggiore one day (our favorite of the hill towns that we visited and where we ended up staying during our time there) and I really really want this to happen. Really. We became friends with Costeve, the town butcher, and tasted the freshest seafood I've ever had in my life (there was a sign out front saying "closed for cleaning" which indicated that the little woman who owned the restaurant was literally cleaning the fish that her husband had just caught. Moments later we indulged in the deliciousness of that seafood).
One of the main attractions of the Cinque Terre lies in the Parco Nazionale delle Cinque Terre in the ~6.5 mile seaside hike. When we were visiting, two of the trails were closed which made our hike much longer, but SO enjoyable. The famous Via dell'Amore (one of my favorite parts from my previous visit there) was closed, but we found trails that actually led us through Italian VINEYARDS. I'm not even joking. We hiked through the Cinque Terre vineyards, the ones that produce some of the best white wine I've ever tasted.
Cinque Terre vineyards
Vineyards overlooking Manarola
One of my favorite memories from this part of our trip was watching the sunset on the first night in Riomaggiore. We had arrived around 6PM from Santa Margherita Ligure by train, and we had hiked up to the top of the hill in the main plaza of Riomaggiore to get to check into our room. We immediately took a liking to Luciano, the owner of several little vacation homes in Riomaggiore (homes is a very loose term. We stayed in an adorable 1-bedroom seaside villa). He walked us to where we'd be staying (more hills, more stairs) and spoke in impeccable English. He was excited that we were honeymooning in Italy and even more excited that we'd chosen to rent a room from him in Riomaggiore. He was so proud of the upgraded room that he had given us ("for free! You will really love this place!") and promised to make himself available for anything we needed during our stay.
We wandered down to Via Colombo, the main road where life unfolds in Riomaggiore, and started looking for a really good pizza place. We had spotted a great sunset-viewing location when walking up the hill with Luciano and were set on a pizaa and wine sort of sunset.
Via Colombo
Not our favorite pizza we had in Italy, but good enough for hungry travelers.
Not pictured: the Cinque Terre limoncino (similar to limoncello) that
we enjoyed with our meal. To be noted: do not try to chug limoncino
like you would lemonade. Poor, poor, esophagus.
The next morning, we were disappointed to wake up to the sound of pouring rain outside. We had planned to do our big hike that day but settled for eating leftover pizza and limoncino instead while we made a plan for what to do next. By 11, the sun was starting the peek out and the rain had slowed to a drizzle, so we figured we could at least attempt the hike that day. Honestly, I think we would have been miserable if we had attempted this hike on a hot, sunny day. The rain had cooled things down just enough to where we needed light sweatshirts and longsleeves to begin our hike. I won't recount every part of the hike to you, but I'll just tell you to do it if you ever find yourself in Italy. You'll want to cry during many parts of the hike, but you'll be comforted by the fact that you can stop for gelato in every hill town if you so desire. And you can eat the sandwiches that you made from ingredients at the local butchershop-- tomato, fresh mozzarella, and lots of prosciutto. And the photos you come home with will be worth all the times you wanted to cry or quit or just hop on the train back to your room.
Have I convinced you to go, yet? I feel that the hike is best told in pictures. We ended our hike at Marina Piccola in Manarola, suggested by my friend, Lisa, before we left. This place didn't disappoint, though everyone else seated at the seaside restaurant wore lavish couture clothing, breezy sundresses, ironed polo shirts. We were severely underdressed but were so happy to be sitting and eating food that we didn't seem to care. We ate and enjoyed fresh anchovies, which this region is well-known for (as a side note: in the US I wouldn't go near anchovies. I was spoiled by the freshest ones I've ever known in Manarola and won't settle for anything less here in the US). We hopped on a train back to Riomaggiore; we would have hiked the last little detoured route if it hadn't been so dark and late. Since we had started our hike late in the day due to weather, we couldn't quite finish the hike (and the via dell Amore was closed anyways, which would have been our quickest way home!). We rested well that night to prepare for our last day in the Cinque Terre the following morning.
After sleeping in, we woke up and headed down for coffee near the church in Riomaggiore. We enjoyed caffe freddo (cold coffee) by the seaside and prepared for our day at the beach.
Coffee with a view
We then headed down to the "beach," quite different from our East Coast beaches back home. We were surprised to find large boulders that people were laying out on instead of the sandy beaches that we might have found back home or even further north in Monterosso al Mare.
We were sad to leave Riomaggiore, especially without saying goodbye to Luciano, but considered ourselves lucky to run into him in the La Spezia train station on our way to Florence.
I hope you'll travel to the Cinque Terre someday, and I hope that it won't just be a day passing through or a day trip from Florence. I hope you'll stay there and allow the five lands to charm you into staying even longer than you anticipated, that they convince you to come back someday.
It'll take me a long time to write the next installment of our honeymoon adventures, as Florence is a mighty task to take on writing about. But hopefully I've left you with enough photos of the Cinque Terre to keep you occupied for a good while!
Lots of love and hope you are having a great week, friends. It's sunny in Indy and fairly warm this week, so I'm sending warm, sunny thoughts your way.
XO,
C.
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