Cinque Terra

A while ago we once again packed up our backpacks and headed off to Cinque Terra with a huge group of people (some mates, and a lot of people we'd never met.)

Cinque Terra is a group of five small fishing villages on the coast of Italy. We headed off from our flat at about 5am and headed to Mel's place to meet with half of the group and jump into the cabs to head to the airport (this also was an interesting experience as they had booked an 8 seater cab, but a 6 seater turned up and we had to fit in 8 people into a 6 seater cab....).

We got to Stanstead at about 6am and checked in, got some Euro from the currency exchange and then headed off through the usual security rigmarole.

After a while we boarded our flight for Pisa. It was strange as about 3 of the people that we were travelling with had a serious fear of flying, so that was interesting to see. We're very lucky we're not like that - it would be terrible to have that fear.

We arrived in Pisa and caught a local bus to the Leaning Tower. It was excellent to see it.

After we'd checked it out, we decided to go for a horse and carriage ride around Pisa. It turned out that Pisa is quite a lovely city, contrary to what we'd heard before - we had heard from quite a number of people that Pisa was crap, but we all thought it was excellent.

After we'd finished our horse and carriage ride, we decided it was time to try and find somewhere for lunch. We wandered around for a while and we found an excellent little pasta place where we stopped and grabbed a bite to eat.

We had to head off for the train station after this, so Mel, Ian and both of us started walking in the direction that we thought it was. On the way, Damo spotted this cool bit of graffiti on a wall.

Of course we found the shopping street on the way, so Nik and Mel were kept occupied, while Ian and Damo were sitting in the street having a couple of very large Italian beers.

Finished shopping, and we all headed in the direction that we thought the train station was - unfortunately we didn't really have a clue. After walking around lost in Pisa for a while, we ended up working out where it was - we were only a block away from it!

We boarded the train to Riomaggiore (the first village of the Cinque Terra, and also where we were staying) and settled in with a couple of beers, some great company and some incredible scenery.

After we arrived at the first village, we went to our hotel room (which was actually owned by some of Bec's family - one of the girls whose birthday we were there for...) and settled into our room and went and bought some provisions for that night's party.

Our room

Initially we were led to believe that the Italian family of Bec were going to cook Pasta and Pesto (Pesto was actually invented in this area of Italy), but unfortunately they didn't turn up to the party until late. So as it turned out, Ian and Damo ended up on cooking duty cooking up a storm for about 25 people. All went swimmingly until Bec decided to help us out by adding salt to the water, and poured half the packet in and then just said to us 'Don't worry about it - it'll be fine....'.... mmhmm! That batch of pasta turned out interesting to say the least... The rest of it wasn't too bad though.

[Damo cooking pasta...]

Damo cooking pasta with Ian

The party was a lot of fun, but it had been a looooong day so it might have been a little more fun if we hadn't been so tired, but regardless we had a great time.

The next day we woke up relatively bright and early considering, and headed down for some breakfast at a little cafe that looked out over the water. The view was amazing.

The Cafe

The View...

More of the view....

The food wasn't anything special, but the view definitely made up for it. Next we headed to the train station to purchase our tickets for the national park for the trek between the five villages. Mel's foot was still in deep trouble, so she caught the train, but most of the other people were up for it. We started in Riomaggiore and headed our way along the coastline.

Just outside Riomaggiore on the way to Manarola

The walk from Riomaggiore to Manarola was very, very busy and packed with people, so many that we were thinking if the whole hike was like this it would be very painful. Thankfully, once we'd got past Manarola, the crowds thinned out quite a bit.

Looking back at Riomaggiore from Manarola

Main street of Manarola

After Manarola, the walk remained very scenic and a lot less crowded. The weather was amazing, and we basically just had a brilliant day. Corniglia was the next village that we came to.

As we came into Corniglia, there was an absolutely massive set of stairs called Lardarina that we were going to have to walk up. 33 flights and 377 stairs. No problem....

Lardarina

Corniglia is the only one of the five villages that isn't located right on the water - it's on a promontory about 100 metres high. It had a very different vibe about it to the other villages.

After Corniglia, we headed off for Vernazza where we were going to meet up with everyone for lunch. During the trek, we both ended up walking with Cam and Laurie, a couple of Kiwi's that are flatmates of Mel's. They're both really lovely people, and the walk was excellent.

The path between Corniglia and Vernazza was a fair bit more 'off the beaten track' than the rest of the trek.

Looking back at Corniglia on our way to Vernazza...

We walked along the path to Vernazza which by this point in time was fairly exhausting, and we were all looking forward to sitting down and having a big feed at the restaurant in Vernazza (not to mention a couple of frosty beverages....). During this part of the trek, we were getting very frustrated at the amount of old people on the pathway that had ski-poles in each hand as walking sticks, would walk slowly, and not get out of the way causing a virtual traffic jam on the pathway. However, the trek from Corniglia to Vernazza was stunning, so it mattered not. It was a lot greener than the other pathways as it meandered through Olive groves. It was so cool!

Coming into Vernazza

Once we reached Vernazza, just on our side of it, was the restaurant where we were going to put our feet up and have a cold drink - boy had we earned it!

The restaurant in Vernazza

We were pretty tired due to the big night the night before, so we decided that we'd have a look around Vernazza and call it a day, catch the ferry back to Riomaggiore and then catch the train to Monterosso on the Sunday.

Vernazza was probably the prettiest village of them all, however we had a small soft spot for Riomaggiore as it was where we were staying.

The harbour at Vernazza

The clock tower with some of the village in the background...


On the boat on the way back to Riomaggiore

Riomaggiore from the water

Once we got back to Riomaggiore, we had a quick look around the harbour, and then headed back to our room to get ready for dinner. On the way back up the main street, we saw most of our group sitting outside a pub having a few drinks, so we decided that we would join them.

The view around the harbour...

Looking the other way....

On the way back to our flat to get ready for dinner.... Everyone was still pretty thirsty from the walk... ;-)

Everyone ended up getting ready very late for dinner, and by this time we had missed our booking at the restaurant that was owned by one of Bec's relatives (and they weren't real happy about it...), so we had to go to another restaurant. There wasn't anyone that actually enjoyed their meal much, but Damo's wasn't too bad. We did have the best wine we've ever drank while we were here though...

After we finished here, we went back to Bec's family's place for dessert. They were very friendly, and the dessert was magnificent - we really should have gone here for dinner....

Immediately after dessert, most people started heading back to their rooms as we were all thoroughly annihilated.

We woke up the next morning and headed for the train station once more so that we could catch the train to Monterosso - the 5th village. We were in a pretty chilled mood on the Monday, so we didn't really go knocking ourselves out in Monterosso. We only had about two hours to spend here before we boarded the train to Torino (Turin) to catch our flight home that night. We wandered around, and it was quite a lovely village with an old town and a newer part. We didn't realise until there was about half an hour to go that there was an old town, so we spent most of our time here in the newer part, and only just before we left did we realise, so we ran to the other part of the town, had a quick look around, and then ran back to the train station, just in time for our train.

We got on the train, and settled in for a long trip - it was something like 4 hrs on the train or something to get to Torino, but it was an excellent atmosphere - we'd had a great time, and we had plenty of excellent wine and beer to drink on the train ride. :-)

Fortunately the train ride passed quickly and once we got to Torino we had a fair amount of time to look around. Now Torino was a beautiful city, and if we ever get the chance to go back there again, we wouldn't hesitate. There's not a huge amount to see there, but it is quite nice nevertheless. And big-ish. Only problem was that it was about 4pm and we were all starving, and we absolutely couldn't find anywhere to eat. After walking around for about an hour or so we ended up finding somewhere to eat and rest our travel-weary bones.

One of the many cool squares in Torino

Typical architecture of Torino

After we had finished eating here, we headed back to the train station to meet up with the rest of the group. Once there we had found that we'd missed our bus to the airport, so rather than stuff around, we all just decided to get taxis. Got to the airport, checked in, waited patiently for our 10:30pm flight and ended up arriving back into Stansted at about 1am. By the time we had got our taxis home, it was about 2:30am and we had to get up to go to work in about 5 hours. We were absolutely shattered, but had a sensational time.

Sorry it's been so long since an update - we promise to try and be better...... Miss everyone heaps.