Cinque Terre, Italy

After our weekend in Genoa we headed to the Cinque Terre on the Mediterranean coast. Wow! What a beautiful place.  Cinque Terre means "5 lands" in Italian, because there are 5 tiny coastal towns all in a row.

Here is a view of some of the towns. There is one just to the right of the yacht, close to the water, and another to the left of the yacht, up on the cliffside. And you can see another further left tucked away in the cove.

There is a hiking trail along the coast that goes between all 5 towns and we were all excited to do the hike, but we were getting into the rainy season and they had closed the trails due to landslide danger. So that was too bad, but we still took trains to all the towns.  We did get caught in a couple downpours during our 4 days there.

The train station in the town we were staying in, Monterosso. As soon as the train pulled up there was a sudden shrieking and yelping as all the people had to walk out into the rain to get on.

This was 3 in the afternoon, and it was so dark the streetlights came on.

The best part about the rain was that it was WARM! We were out there with just an umbrella (ingeniously purchased about 3 minutes before the rainstorm) and weren't even chilly. That's my kind of weather!  And the rain would come in bursts and then clear up and be sunny and humid again. It was so beautiful there. 

We had pulled into town without a place to stay, because we had heard that everyone there (or their neighbor) rents rooms. We (and by "we" I mean Melanie the Planner) were a little unsure about this plan. But it turns out, the towns are so tiny that sure enough, everyone rents or knows someone who rents rooms. We ended up going to the Tourist Information office and asking, and getting a choice of 3 different places. We ended up choosing a place that was at the top of about 60 super steep stairs (doh!)

I took this picture at the halfway point! That's Brannan in the white shirt up there. It's just as steep going down behind me.

The only consolation was the aroma going up and down those stairs. There were lemon trees and herb gardens all along it and it was HEAVENLY! The smell of fresh herbs and lemons and sea air... ahhhh.

We also had the best seafood of our lives here. It was a risotto dish with mussels, clams, shrimp, calamari, etc and it was cooked in a pot with a tortilla-like dough stretched over the top of the pot. Then they brought it to our table and lit it on fire!! Of course we were too wowed to get a picture of it.  But that was lunch... so we went back for dinner and got some delicious pasta.

Sea bass ravioli

Seafood with pasta

And of course there was the gelato. Mmmmm. You can find a place that sells gelato on every corner and we certainly took advantage! So far, 4 in one day is our record, and that includes gelato for breakfast.
Hm, I wonder if this might be the reason we liked the place so much...

Only one of those is his.  Don't judge!

Each town was very similar looking, but yet very different. One was all cliffs and terraced vineyards, and one was all beachy, and one was very touristy with lots of shops. I get them all mixed up, so here are a bunch of pictures of everything we saw.

The beach in the town we were staying in.

All the towns were so steep! We definitely got our share of stair exercises done.

Still a lot of tourists around, even this late in the season.

Because of the storms, the seas were really rough - check out those waves! None of the boats were running from town to town while we were there.

Such a beautiful view of the town

Nice place for a rest and a view of the sea

There are some terraced vineyards

More stairs!  Oy!

At the top of the town. What a beautiful view of the sea.

Those are some narrow streets

Don't you just feel relaxed looking at these pictures?!  We were glad the weather was pretty nice, despite the few rain showers.  We got to explore the area and enjoy the sea.
These are some pictures we took on our way out of town, in front of the train station. We were sad we had to leave, it was gorgeous!

Doesn't this look like a screensaver? Minus the random lady, I tried to crop her out...

 Next stop: Venice!