tuscany 2022: Day 3: 6/10/22

I booked us a day trip to Cinque Terre.

We booked an all-day excursion to Cinque Terre, the “Italian Riviera”. (While there were some nice beaches, I think this description is a little hyperbolic.)

We were instructed to go to the train station, only 3 blocks away. Unlike the private tour with Simone and the slightly larger tour with Mario the day before, there were between 50-100 people waiting for tours. About 50 of them climbed in a coach for the two-hour ride to La Spezia Centrale. From there, we had a 15-minute walk to the train station where we got on TrenItalia and went one stop to Manarola. Manarola was the second of five little villages by the sea.

The trains in Europe are fast, efficient, and cheap. And electric. By comparison, our public transport is a national embarrassment.

While there was a coach load full of people, there were two guides, and each handled half the group. Our guide was Abo, a young Romanian now living in Italy. The other guide was a young Italian woman, and since she worked with the other group, I don’t remember her name.

Here he is trying to herd us.

He is actually a pretty interesting guy: late 20s, musician by training, but guides these trips almost every day.

We took a short walk up the hill to the town and this was the view. Because these little villages were built into the hillsides, any walk away from the sea was up.

And because the terrain is so steep, a lot of supplies have to be flown in.

We got back on the train and got off at Corniglia where we started our walking.

Here is a picture of the very civilized walkway to a restaurant where we had lunch. Switchbacks were very necessary.

After lunch, we began our hike to the next town, Vernassa. The trail is basically the same trail used for many centuries and the tour description admonishes against flip flops and open-toed sandals. Even so, we saw some folks, not just kids, with inappropriate footwear. I decided to bring a pair of sneakers as my only shoes besides my cycling shoes and they were barely adequate. Trail runners would have been better, and lightweight hiking boots would have been best.

We tried to get to the front to avoid getting stuck behind some slow-movers. The trail was barely wide enough for two people to pass by, so we got up front to be able to move at our own pace. We worked up a good sweat getting to the top.

Here's a picture of the early part of trail looking forward and then backwards.

That's Abo up front with Walter. The other guide did sweep at the back.

Here's Walter and me somewhere on the trail.

Here’s a picture out the window of the place that sold slushies. We were too overheated to enjoy the moment, but the slushies were refreshing.

From this point, it was mostly descending to the next town. As anyone over 40 in reasonably good shape knows, descending is harder than climbing. We carefully made our way down, using the railings whenever they were available to make sure not to twist an ankle or sprain a knee. We wanted to be able to ride the next day.

Here is the view of Vernassa as we descend into the town.

Here's a nice picture Mike took of me above Vernassa.

I wish I had turned on Strava to record the hike. I was able to reconstruct the hike using google maps and it is saying 3.5 kilometers and 156 meters of elevation gain and 234 meters of descending.

(https://www.google.it/maps/dir/Corniglia,+19018+SP/Vernazza,+19018+SP/@44.1275424,9.6885349,15z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x12d4f00e56731fa9:0x71091f7f3077a043!2m2!1d9.7100307!2d44.1198619!1m5!1m1!1s0x12d4f02be5dd145f:0x775cfff3f41b7b2a!2m2!1d9.6849935!2d44.1349211!3e2?hl=en)

We got back on the train and got off at Riomaggiore. This is the scene highlighted in Rick Steve's video of Cinque Terre.