All Across The Universe...: Cinque Terre

We decided to give the camping a rest for a while and book somewhere nice for a few days in Cinque Terre to relax before the madness of Florence. Cinque Terre is a group of 5 villages perched along a strech of steep coastal cliffs on the west coast of Italy. Cinque Terre translates literally to "Five Lands". Some hippies we met later in the trip told us they had also been to the "Sink Terr" and they loved it.

Each of the 5 villages is connected by train, and there are no cars allowed past the first village. There is also a walking track along the coast that runs the entire distance, about 12km or so. You have to pay to use the tracks but was well worth it. The part of the track between the first two villages was called 'Via dell'amore', and had the best views.

We stayed in the first of the five villages, Riomaggiore. Our apartment was cool, really big with a kitchen, lounge room, TV, and balcony. It was good to be able to cook for a change and have a few drinks at home on our own balcony. Made heaps of pastas with fresh local vegies and handmade pasta and bought the finest, cheapest 1litre beers we could find. The old lady next door brought us fresh figs off her tree.

Me at the marina in Riomaggiore

Riomaggiore

There were views like this around every corner along the coastal walk.

A tunnel made up part of the distance on Via dell'amore with open arches looking out to sea

A glimpse of one of the 5 villages behind the rocks from the train line

Another view from the coastal track...

...and another a bit further along. There were heaps of spots to swim on the way, we swam off the rocks in quite a few places to cool down along the way.

This was just around from Riomaggiore. They store a lot of the boats on the land, stacked in compartments. They have a big boom that reaches out over the water to winch them up.

On the way home we stopped for a drink at 2 bars that we had seen along the way.

This one was half way in between the first 2 villages. It was just a little cafe on the side of the track that hung right out over the cliff.

The second one was closr to home, you can see the Riomaggiore train station in the background. You can also see the boat storage carved into the cliff.

View of the same bar from the Riomaggiore train station.

Somewhere along the walking track with Manarola, the second village, in the back ground.

Another shot of Manarola, one of my favourite photos. The villages look like a bunch of different coloured lego bits thats been scattered on the cliffs.

On the second day we hired kayaks and paddled in the opposite direction from the walking track. We paddled out for about 2 hours, stopping at a couple of little coves to swim and rest up. Going out was fine, but the 2 hours home was really hard work (Lalors - it was like the kayak version of Barnacle Bill's hike).