will and sarah in europe

September 5 – Dawn to dusk in Cinque Terre

We were up very early to catch the 6am train to Corniglia so we could walk the trail to Vernazza nice and early.

We arrived in Corniglia at 6:20 and walked up the long, zig zagging flight of stairs, then wandered through the town as it was just waking up. Will found a coffee shop for a take away coffee and croissant before we headed off for the leg between Corniglia and Vernazza.

It was a nice section of trail with some easy/moderate ups and downs, with views back to Corniglia and forward to Vernazza. The section took about 1.5 hours, with lots of photo stops and admiring the view along the way, there was also a bar/cafe half way but it wasn’t open.

We continued along with it being nice and cool in the shade, with a calm ocean on our west and cliffs on our east. The second half was mostly down hill and we slowly lost sight of Corniglia and gained views of Vernazza.

We made it to Vernazza before the first lot of trains brought heaps of people. It was nice to walk down to the water front and look up at the waking town.

We stopped into the church and Sarah found the resident church cat to share a pew with. We then went and got breakfast, with assorted pastries and a focaccia for the road. After we left sufficiently satisfied with our people watching and town strolling we started our next leg of the walk.

This was from Vernazza to Monterosso. This leg was a bit harder. It started with the picturesque views of Vernazza and walked up the many, many stairs and along the narrow paths. As we got towards our highest point there was a spectacular view back towards Vernazza where we were able to take a great picture. Will also took many for a queue of people wanting his services.

Continuing along the path, it was getting quite hot as it ticked past 11am. Snaking around the coast each corner was a new view of the towns and dramatic cliffs. Passing the half way point we were then on the mostly downhill part. There was such great views of the cliffs all the way down to the ocean.

Turning a corner we could see Monterosso, and the beach we had been looking forward to swimming at. We then had to go down lots of very steep stairs, which made us very thankful we had decided to do the path the way we did.

We reached the edge of Monterosso and walked down to the beach, jumping in was a cool relief from over 7kms of walking over the course of the morning.

After we enjoyed our swim we dried off and found a restaurant for lunch, sharing a pizza and pasta, we watched the town pass by before sharing a very nice tiramisu. We then walked up the town and back down again, before hopping on the train back to Manarola and back to our room for a well earned rest.

We then walked down to town for dinner, sharing pasta. We then continued to the edge of town to watch the sunset, then further around to the towns lights slowly turn on.