Retroactively: Cinque Terre, Italy, May 25 - 28, 2018

Cinque Terre is a National Park along the northern west coastline of Italy and winds around five old towns, clinging to the cliffs.  The earliest historical documents date to the 11th Century!

Welcome to Volastra!  Here I am waving out our little apartment.  The houses are so close together and "on top" of each other that walkways go every which way.

Our Cinque Terre town is Manarola.  From there we take a small bus up into the hills to Volastra.  

The street goes a short way into town; then there is a place to turn around.  All else is done on foot!

We prepared a lot of meals in our kitchen and ate out on a patio surrounded by grapevines.

Following are typical views, which repeated in the different towns 

and seemed lovelier around every bend on the paths.  

On the 26th we took the train to Vernazza and hiked on the Nat. Park trail to Corniglia.  We started so early that the Park wasn't "officially" open yet.  It was a beautiful hike!

We returned home earlier than we expected and after a meal and a short rest we were ready for another hike.  This one was from our town Volastra to Corniglia and it was a new experience. 

At first we just walked through vinyards and enjoyed a gorgeous view of the Ligurian Sea.  Then the path became narrow, steep, and untended with bolders here and there. 

Find Jack in the bottom right.  The rock slide had covered a part of the path!

It was some of the most challenging hiking we've done.  Steep down hill!  

At the very end of this hike we had a difficult time finding the train station since we were coming from a path few tourists use.  Finally we came to the 350 steps which take you down to the station.

 Sunday morning we toured Riomaggiore and then took the train to Monterosso and hiked to Vernazza - incredible views, but also the most people we'd encountered on a path.

One advantage of meeting people is that they can take your picture!  See Vernazza in the distance.

Even on this well groomed path we encountered a  broken bridge that was handled in Italian fashion.

This is already so long and I feel like you haven't even seen a fraction of the vistas!

The food was particularly tasty with wonderful seasoning.  

Jack thinks it might be because we were always starving by the time we finally ate!

 We bought some of their very special wines.  You can't imagine how proud they are that already Pliny the Elder was extolling the virtues of their wine back in Roman times!!

And we tried as many unknown pastries and dishes as possible.  

Not a day without gelato!

That night we were happy to be back at our bus stop waiting for the bus to take us to the top of the hill and our apartment.  There is no bus stop sign.  Everyone knows it's by the water wheel.

Monday was our last day and we'd saved our closest town of Manarola for last.  

 We learned that the whole town was hit with a flood / landslide in October, 2011.

All these shops have rebuilt since then.

It is just as picturesque as the other four Cinque Terre towns, but each has its own character.  We were sorry to have to leave on the afternoon train.