Hiking Cinque Terre

Monterosso, Italy in Cinque Terre

Ever since seeing the Amalfi Coast of Italy for the first time in 2007, we have told anyone who asked - or anyone who would listen - that it was the most beautiful coast line in the world. On that day eight years ago, we set out from Sorrento in our rental car and navigated the winding, cliff-hugging road with a sweaty-palmed death grip on the wheel, stopping along the way to shop at a ceramics store that was literally carved out of the mountainside rock, buying lemons from a roadside vendor, and taking picture after picture of the spectacular scenery.  One picture in particular we turned into a poster, available for sale here at our Fine Art America photography website.

Our poster of Positano on the Amalfi Coast of Italy

But after our most recent vacation, there may be a new challenger to the title of "World's Most Beautiful Coast Line."  And it's no surprise that it's also in Italy.  It's Cinque Terre.  Cinque Terre ("The Five Lands") is made up of five villages - Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore - along the coast of the Italian Riviera in northwest Italy.  The area is an Italian national park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and is highlighted by a series of hiking trails that lead from village to village, up and down the sloping hillsides.  We were staying in Monterosso, the northernmost village of the group, and spent nearly seven hours hiking through three of the other small towns.

Vernazza

The cliff-top village of Corniglia

We had heard of the hiking trails of Cinque Terre, but it turned out to be a much more strenuous hike than we expected.  Portions of the trail require scaling steep, weathered steps and climbing rugged, rocky terrain.  But those efforts pay off when you walk through the quiet vineyards and olive groves that line the landscape, ultimately leading to breathtaking views of the glistening waters of the Ligurian Sea (an arm of the Mediterranean).

Ann climbs some of the narrow
stone steps along the trail.

We made our way through Vernazza and Corniglia, ending our trek in Manarola.  The main trail between Manarola and Riomaggiore (the southernmost village) was closed during our stay.

Some of the vineyards that line the hillsides of Cinque Terre

The best views of the area are definitely from the trails, but almost as equally breathtaking is the view from the water aboard the ferry, which we rode back from Manarola to Monterosso.

Manarola as seen from the Ligurian Sea

Here's a video we made on the trail between Corniglia and Manarola, about five-and-a-half hours into our trek:

So what's the most beautiful coast line in the world: Amalfi or Cinque Terre?  We suggest you drive Amalfi and hike Cinque Terre and decide for yourself.

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Springtime in Italy

I’m always so happy when Spring arrives even when winter, like this past one, wasn’t so bad.  I can’t imagine anywhere in the world where it wouldn’t be pretty in the Springtime.  One of my favorite memories is of a Spring in Italy a few years ago.  It was May and we had saved up enough frequent flyer miles that we could fly into Venice and out of Rome.  So we decided we would rent a car and drive the length of the whole country.  I certainly wouldn’t advise it, but it was an experience!   

We started in Venice, one of my favorite cities in the world.  I’ve heard people say that it’s dirty and there are too many pigeons.  But I think it has more atmosphere than almost any other city I can think of.  It is completely unique.  You travel from one part to another by boat on the canals, but much of it is accessible by foot.  It’s pretty easy to get lost in the tangled narrow streets full of shops and architecturally significant buildings.  Every corner you turn is photo-worthy; whether it’s a bridge with a canal background or a several-hundred year old beautiful church or some quaint corner café with blooming flowerboxes.

Be careful how you order though, we wound up paying over $170 for a fish dinner when it turned out the price was per gram of fish and not per dinner!  Lesson learned.   

Next up was Milan where the streets were so confusing that after driving around for an hour and a half we literally abandoned the car and walked to our hotel.  The hotel desk clerk sent a bellhop with John to retrieve the car and show him where the parking garage was.  One of the main things we wanted to do in Milan was see Da Vinci’s Last Supper which he painted on an inside wall of a 500 year old convent.  We asked the desk clerk how to find the convent and he kept saying, no, we wouldn’t be able to see it and in a thick Italian accent he kept repeating something that we finally figured out was “Dan Brown”.  It seems that because of the huge popularity of the Da Vinci Code, showings were sold out unless you had a reservation, which, unfortunately, we did not have.  We decided to try our luck anyway and headed for the convent on foot.  Miles later we arrived and were told that it was sold out for the day.  After practically begging the very nice Italian ticket agent, he said he would sneak us in.  He did and, boy, was all the pleading worth it.  It is huge and breathtaking.  

After Milan, it was on to Tuscany.   Up to this point we were on major highways where traffic flew by at 100 miles an hour.  Heading for Pisa and Florence, meant taking the back roads of Tuscany which wind and turn and take forever to get somewhere but you really don’t care because the scenery is so beautiful.  We arrived in Pisa, and checked out the  iconic tower, which was hard to do because of all the crowds and the very annoying souvenir hawkers.   

Then on to Florence where the streets are so narrow that they seem to disappear.   Florence is beautiful with gorgeous churches and unparalleled museums.  Michaelangelo’s David is worth the trip alone.   

Getting out of Florence was challenging and we got hopelessly lost, but we managed to make our way back out to the Tuscan roads.  That’s where we came across one of the loveliest things we have ever seen.  It was a field of freshly blooming red poppies leading up to an old Tuscan farmhouse.  It looked like a painting.  We pulled over to take pictures and there was a group of bicyclists from America who ditched their bikes to take in the awesome scene. 

Back on a major highway we headed for Pompeii, one of our favorite archeological sites of all time.  Pompeii was covered and, at the same time, preserved by the ash of the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79AD.  It is so well preserved that you literally walk into people’s homes and can see their paintings on the walls.  

 The bakery’s wheat grinding stone is still in place where it was left 2000 years ago.  And there are casts of the bodies of people who were overcome by the ash.  It’s a close as you’ll get to 2000 year old bodies.

Next up was Sorrento, the Island of Capri and a drive along the absolutely stunning Amalfi Coast, the most beautiful coastline in the world.    

We ended in Rome where we spent a couple of days seeing all the historical sites that are unrivaled in the world.   

Several weeks after we got home, we got a souvenir in the mail from Italy:  a traffic ticket.  Then a few weeks later, yet another one!  Since they were in Italian, we’re not sure what we did, but apparently we inadvertently broke a couple of traffic laws and they tracked us down.  Despite the problems, it was an absolutely fabulous trip.  And, in case you are wondering, we did NOT pay the traffic tickets!

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Ruins of the World: Pompeii

I love ruins.  There is nothing more exciting than scrambling all over an ancient site where a once great civilization lived and ruled.  There is so much you can tell about them and how advanced they were just by what is still left behind today.  But usually ruins are just that:  ruins.  You can tell where a wall or a roof might have been, but in many cases, there’s just not much left.  Not so with one of our favorite sites:  Pompeii.   

Pompeii was covered with ash back in 79 AD by an eruption of Mt. Vesuvius which is still an active volcano today near Naples, Italy.  That ash buried Pompeii, but at the same time it preserved it.  The ancient city was completely forgotten until accidentally discovered again in the 18^th century.   

In recent history, archeologists have worked to uncover it and what they have found is a city frozen in time. The cobblestone streets appear as they did when Roman chariots rode them.   

There’s a large beautiful ampitheater where shows are still held today. 
 
There’s a roman bath where you can still see what’s left of the beautiful fountains and artwork on the ceilings.  

On one well-preserved street there is a bakery with a large stone that was used to grind the wheat for bread.   

What is really unique about Pompeii is that the homes were preserved.  Most world-renowned ruins are of temples or monuments, such as in Egypt, but homes were usually made of wood or mud or lesser materials that wouldn’t last through the centuries.  In Pompeii you can actually walk in someone’s home and see their courtyard and, in many cases, mosaics and paintings on the walls, still very colorful today.   

One of the most interesting buildings that is very well-preserved is a brothel.  It’s a 2 story building that actually had “menus” painted on the walls where a “patron” could order what he wanted.  These “menus” are amusingly graphic and still amazingly visible today. 
 

The brothel had stone beds and even a toilet which looks like a latrine. 

One of the most amazing things of all in Pompeii, however, is that archeologists have found bodies of victims.  Actually what they found was the space where a decomposed body had been.  They then filled it with a polymer and were able to basically make a “cast” of the body.  

You can actually see the victims’ tortured positions as they succumbed to the ash.  It’s chilling and it’s about as close as you’ll ever get to a 2000 year old body.   

You can spend a whole day walking this fascinating place.  We’d recommend the audio tour.  There’s also a sound and light show at night that re-enacts the eruption.  The Roman Empire is one of the greatest stories in history, Pompeii is like walking back in time to where the average Roman lived.

 

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