Cinque Terre

On our second day in Cinque Terre we decided to explore the other villages. The first village we went to was Riomaggiore, which is first in the line of villages. We wandered up the main street of the village, looking at all the cute shops and resturants along the way. The towns are not very big, so we had seen the main part of the town within about 20 minutes. As it was approaching lunch time we went in search of some food. We came across this seafood shop that sells seafood in a cone. I decided to be adventurous and ordered the mixed seafood cone! When I got it, I began to question what I had done. There were small, whole fish staring blankly up at me, whole baby squid, chunks of who knows what. You need to understand that I am an incredibly fussy eater, so this was a huge moment for me. 

With a brave heart I tucked into the meal. I tried almost everything in the cone. Some things were actually very yummy, but other things not so much. The tiny whole fish were not so good. They were very hard to eat, with their eyes still staring at you, and were incredibly salty and fishy. There was one other whole fish in there, that Harrison tried but it still had the bones in it so I couldn't handle that. But most of the other seafood in the cone was actually pretty good. I'm not entirely sure what I ate, but I am glad that I tried it! 

After braving lunch, we made our way done to the beach. As I mentioned in the previous posts, the beaches aren't really beaches more rocks, and this one was much the same. However, this one was more of a bay that you could swim in, with little boats parked all around. 

We had bought some fruit from the local grocer and sat on the rocks to eat our fruit and take in the beauty of the town. I chose a nectarine, and it was the best nectarine I have ever eaten in my entire life! It was so juicy and full of flavour! It was absolutely incredible, I am so in love with the fruit here!! We finished our fruit and headed into the water. We had rented goggles from our hostel so we hoped to do a bit of snorkelling. The water was much colder than the day before, but we made it in and ventured further out into the bay. The water was also not as clear as the beach in our village, but it was still very beautiful. We swam around for a while, looking at the little fish swimming about. 

The next town we planned to visit was Manarola. We hopped on a train heading in the direction we needed, and watched as a few minutes later it went straight past Manarola. And past the our villiage, and the one after ours. It eventually stopped at the last and biggest villiage of the 5 called Monterosso. We quickly jumped off before we went any further away from where we wanted to be. Montorosso is where all the big resorts and hotels are, as it is the largest of the villages. It is also the only villiage with a proper beach. 

Although the beach is half sand and half pebbles. It was incredibly busy when we got there, we took one look at all the people and decided we had seen enough. We did wander down to the beach, but there were just so many people you could barely move. So we went back to the train station in a second attempt to get to Manarola. We looked up which train we needed to be on and waited for it to arrive. When it did we got on, and once again watched all of the villages pass us by. This time we ended up in a place called La Spezia, which is the town before Cinque Terre. We had gotten on the right train, it had just been an express to La Spezia and didn't stop at all the stops like it normally does. So once again we waited and boarded a third train. And finally made it to Manarola! 

I think that Manarola and Corniglia are my favourites of the five villages. Manarola is really beautiful, with the picturesque coloured houses overlooking the water. We walked up a bit of a hill to a look out point and got the see the whole, beautiful villiage. It sits right on the water, and the coloured houses compliment the crystal blue of the ocean. It was truly beautiful. 

After taking some photos we wandered back down to the area where you could swim. The water was very deep here, but still crystal blue. There weren't as many little fish and things to see with the goggles though. 

We swam for a bit, and then sat on the rocks and watched the water and the people swimming around, and jumping off rocks. 

By the time we made it home, we were both pretty knackered. It had turned out to be a really long day. After a bit of a rest we walked into the town to look for dinner, and some gelato. 

The next day we visited the next villiage along, Vernazza. Luckily we didn't have any issues getting there. Much the same as the previous day, we wandered around the villiage for a bit and then found somewhere to eat lunch. I ordered ravioli and Harrison ordered cannelloni, and we also ordered a 1/2 litre jug of wine. Firstly, the wine came out in a 300mL bottle. We were a bit confused but didn't say anything, thinking they must have run out of the 1/2 litre or something and would charge us less. Secondly, our food came out and Harrison took a bite of his cannelloni, only to find out the centre was stone cold. He took the meal to the front to complain and was met with attitude. They brought the meal back, the same meal, scraped onto a different plate and put in the microwave. We went to pay and found out that they intended to charge us for the 1/2 litre of wine, even though we never received it, and full price for Harrison's meal, even though it came out ice cold! Harrison stood his ground, and refused to pay full price. They were incredibly rude to Harrison, and then only ended up taking €2 off the price. We weren't happy! 

We walked down to the beach area and were a little disappointed. It wasn't nearly as nice as all of the others, with murky water and dark brown mud/sand. We decided against swimming there, and made our way to Monterosso to meet our friend, Bec. There were just as many people at Monterosso as the previous day, but by some miracle we managed to find our friend in the crowd. We were looking around for somewhere to sit, when we were told by a life guard that it was a private beach, and we had to leave or rent a chair. We went looking for a chair, and Bec and her friend got the last two. And had to pay €25 for 2 chairs and an umbrella. I think it's a bit ridiculous that you have to pay to sit on the beach. We went swimming for a little while, and then made our way back to our hostel. 

For dinner that night we found a cute little resturant overlooking the water. 

After having such a bad experience with lunch, we were looking forward to some good food. And we certainly weren't disappointed! The waiters were super friendly, and the food was absolutely amazing! I ordered carbonara, and they serve it to you with scrambled eggs in the pasta. It was really different, but tasted good! Harrison got the pesto pizza and it was amazing! Even better than the first days pizza. To end the night we walked to the lookout, to catch the end of the sunset. We sat on the wall of the lookout and chatted to an American guy we met at our hostel, until it got dark. 

We were woken today by the clap of thunder, and the loud downpour of rain. A storm had settled over Cinque Terre. We spent the morning in the hostel, until we had to leave for them to clean. Luckily it had stopped raining by this point, and there was only a faint grumble of thunder every now and then. We found a dry spot to sit and nestled down to read our books. Our friend Bec met us at our village for lunch, and by then it was pouring again. Poor Bec had walked from Monterosso and was totally drenched! We took shelter in the same little resturant we had eaten at the night before. The weather had turned fierce, the rain was really coming down and the wind was howling. We were really grateful to be under shelter. We ate lunch and waited until the rain had eased a bit. We stayed in the safety of the hostel until it was done. Once the rain stopped, it turned out to be quite a nice day. However this was only at about 4:30. We decided to go over to Manarola, since Bec hadn't seen it yet, and get some gelato. The gelato was amazing, as per usual! 

We spent the evening watching the sunset over the beautiful Italian coastline. 

Tomorrow we are leaving our little patch of paradise, and moving to Nice.