Walking the Cinque Terre

Today we decided to get up early and walk the track between the five villages estimated to take about 6 hours. There was a train strike here today until 9pm in the evening. But that didn’t matter because we could get the boat back to Monterosso.
Off we set – the track between Monterosso and Vernazza – the next village is very steep and narrow. That took about 1 and a half hours to walk very hot and sweaty although it is a bit cooler today and overcast – thank goodness.

This is Vernazza – a beautiful village built into the cliffs. We then set off for Corneglia which didn’t have a port and is set high in the cliff. This took one and a half hours also – more sweat and puffing. We had a lovely lunch here. After that were the villages of Manorola and Riomaggiore which were only about half an hour apart and a little more easier to walk.
On arrival at Riomaggiore we went straight to the office to book the boat trip back because by this time we were buggered and didn’t want to miss the boat. The boat wasn’t operating because of "rough seas" – well the sea was as calm as a good day in NZ!!!! So we thought we had to muck around in this tiny village until 9pm tonight. We thought about hitch hiking but decided not to. There were no taxis or buses. We went back to the train station after lots of mooching around and they said that there might be a train at about 6:00. We went to a bar and had a couple of beers with a nice Australian couple to fill in the time. We were so pleased to get back to Monterosso and have a shower – very hot, tired and sweaty – not a relaxing day at all but glad we did it.