A full day of Ocean at Cinque Terre

After we arrived at our hotel in La Spezia, we were in complete shock at how awesome this place was. On the 6^th floor, with an elevator the size of a portapotty, we had the most beautiful apartment with amazing views above the city. We were excited for the next couple days we had in the town, as well as Cinque Terre, about 30 minutes north of La Spezia. After the most delicious dinner of ravioli and coke, and a couple glasses of wine back at the apartment (on the deck, which was awesome!), we passed out and looked forward to the next day in Cinque Terre.

We woke up slightly later than anticipated, but chose to not stress about it since all we could think about was being lazy, especially on the beach. We all got ready and headed down to the docks to book our boat ride to Cinque Terre. Rachelle gave me the honor of being the new navigator, and I have to say, I am kicking quite some butt at it! We got to the docks and realized we had a little over an hour before we could buy our tickets, so we walked back into town to get some lunch. More pizza! Yay! After lunch we headed back down to the docks to find a huge line of people getting ready to board the ferry. We decided to buy a full day ticket so we could take the return boat back to La Spezia or any other areas in Cinque Terre. We made a couple stops before we got off the ferry and onto a much smaller boat that took us on the most scenic ride ever. Cinque Terre consists of 5 villages spread along the coast. We decided to take the boat all the way to the west most village, Monterosso al Mare, since this village had the beach with sand rather than pebbles. On the boat ride we stopped at each of the villages before making it to Monterosso. We arrived a couple hours later and searched the town for a public restroom. We stopped to buy some beach towels as we hunted for a restroom. We finally found one back where we got off the boat and it cost 50 cent to enter. We changed into our suites and then made our way to the sandy beach. Rachelle asked when the last boat back to La Spezia left, and we were told it was leaving at that exact moment. So, we bought the all day pass to use it once going one way. We decided it would be the train that we would take home. We hung out on the small, crowded beach for several hours and the water was actually much colder than I anticipated, but I still forced myself in, not all the way, and not for very long though.

After we played on the beach, we decided to take the train to the second village, Manarola, and have a nice dinner there. The town was absolutely beautiful and quite hilly. People have taken their boats out of the water and pull them into the streets and leave them in fornt of their homes. It was so neat to see the streets filled with these little boats. We had dinner where I had the best pesto lasagna and also tried my first anchovy. I never eat fish as it is, but this village was one of the Cinque Terre towns well known for its anchovies, so I was forced into eating one. No, I did not like it however, it was not awful. I didn’t go back for seconds though, unlike Rachelle’s two daughters.

There is a path along the coast called the “Via dell' Amore” that leads to Riomaggiore, the first village in Cinque Terre. It takes about 20 minutes, so we decided to work off our big dinner and move along to the last village. It was dark at this time, which would have been perfect for any couple on this walk. “Via dell’ Amore” in English means “The Path of Love”. People have locked locks or tied knots along the fences of this path to symbolize their love for each other. As much as it annoyed me being single and pretending to take pictures with my non-existent man, it was quite romantic to see all the locks and knots tied to the fence. When we finished the night time walk we finally arrived in Riomaggiore. It was more difficult to get a true taste of what this village was all about since most things we already closed down, and the fact that we didn’t have very long to explore because we had to catch our train ride home. We walked only a little way into the village and got some coffee, then decided to go wait at the train station. By the time we got home, it was sleepy time for all.

Cinque Terre is an absolute dream. The pictures I took do it no justice at all. You will never experience the blueness and clearness of the ocean watch until you are standing right above it. The tiny streets filled with authentic Italian’s will never truly be experienced until you are there in the flesh listening to them, watching them and enjoying all the different scents of food, laundry and other random things. I would definitely go back to Cinque Terre, but would make it a point to spend several days in at least a couple of the villages. It has to be one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever visited.