Episode 4: The Five Villages of CinqueTerre
I am home now! Almost always busy with work and daily chores. This Sunday I sat idling for sometime trying to recollect the experiences that I had at Cinque Terre. Well, the trip had been exceptional and Cinque Terre stands out in my memory for its ethereal natural beauty. A cluster of Five small yet popular villages, this place is cut right out from a beautiful dream!
Being from one of the largest thriving metropolitan cities in the world, when I travel to other cities and marvel at their structures and progress I still feel at home. But travelling through beautiful villages with lush vegetation and the emerald blue sea..it was truly a one-of-a-kind experience. So I threw myself back by almost 3 weeks, in my mind it felt surreal to have gone to a place like that!
We had registered for a trek through the five villages of Cinque Terre through a website, that my partner had come across and found great reviews about. Walkabout Florence , organizes these treks in and around Florence and have many a happy customers raving about their great work, we being one of them now.
To participate in this trek, we had to meet the group early morning at the Florence train station and get going. It was till wee hours of the previous night that we were moving around Florence and exploring the little city. Despite that, we managed to wake up at the nick of time, get ready and take a bus ride to the station. We were greeted by Julian, one of our guides for the day. We boarded the bus and began our journey. The trail began from one of the villages in Cinque Terre and was to end in La Spezia. This was to be the last stop for our day trek. La Spezia has a lot of history, and the town has some spectacular buildings, with grand architecture.
We had reached the Liguria region of Italy, Cinque Terre is a UNESCO World Heritage site. We moved further up to the first of the five cluster villages Manarola. Here we began our trek by foot. We walked through the terraced farms, the way farming is done in this province has won it many accolades. From Manarola to the next village Corniglia we walked through the hills all the way staring at the stunning sight below. We saw the blue sea below, with two white specs jetting across the blue, while on our right were hills with small colorful houses dotted across farms.
As we trekked from one hill to the next we crossed rocky slopes, some wilderness, and steep mossy tracks. Towards the end of the tacks as we neared the next village, we could see the Corniglia standing against the blue sea. The beauty of the place was breath taking. As each of us took the last turn on a bend to face this point, we stood staring ahead, to take in the view. And to photograph this stunning locale.
We reached after a rough trek of at least 90 minutes, and then walked up to a restaurant to freshen up and have our lunch. We were served with some of the freshest ingredients from the sea and I loved the food! Some of the freshest sea herbed salads were on our plate as starters. They included, squids, fresh octopus, fish and some potato salad. The main course was a lovely Pasta with pesto sauce. The flavour was very rustic. The restaurant looked out to the sea , and as I ate each spoonful and looked out to the sea I knew that this is as close to heaven on earth as it could possibly get! We were sharing our table with a lovely young couple from Lebanon. It was great to meet them and exchange stories of our countries as we ate.
Post our lunch, we moved around this village to take some more photographs. And then headed to their train station to catch a train to the next village, Vernazza.The train station was however on the sea level. So we went down 350 stairs to the Corniglia railway station, all the time looking at the juxtaposition of the beautiful train lines running in between the sea and the foot of the hills.
At the station our guides handed us tickets to board the train for Vernazza. We arrived soon enough, and disembarked at this village. Here we walked around the little village, saw its little vegetable markets selling fresh produce. We picked up a few keepsakes, and had some of the finest gelatos here. It was recommended by Angel, one of our guides and fine it was! Sometime later, we walked back to the place where we were to meet our guide and move to the next village Monterosso.
This place opened up, as we walked along the beach-side and entered the village. We strolled slowly across the stores and restaurants, and came to a clearing. There was one large restaurant here, where we sat down to sample some seafood and white wine which this place is very famous for. We had our plate of seafood fritters and Sassarini white wine to go with it. The seafood was as fresh as it could get. The white wine complimented the seafood very well. After almost an hour, we strolled back towards the beach to take a few pictures. From here, we were to board onto a boat to sail to the last and final village of the cluster, Riomaggiore.
This little village also had similar stunning views, and colorful houses dotted over the hills. From the cruise it was an unbelievable sight. When we disembarked and walked around, we found stalls selling hot ready-to-eat seafood fritters. So we bought ourselves some street-food ala Cinque Terrre style and had a lovely time sitting and munching on them while watching locals and travelers go by.
We entered in a local shop and bought some more keepsakes and then finally met our guide-turned-friends Angel and Julian.They were indeed some of the coolest guides I have come across. Very unlike the run off the mill tour guides, they were more like travelers who are passionate about what they do. Loved that the fact that they were connecting with us casually and talking about their passion for travelling and cooking(in case of Julian!) We have recommended this trek to a bunch of people who are planning to visit Italy in the near future.
We took our final train from Rio Maggiore for La Spezia. From here we proceeded to Florence all the way thinking of the wonderful time that we had spent.
I am home now! Almost always busy with work and daily chores. This Sunday I sat idling for sometime trying to recollect the experiences that I had at Cinque Terre. Well, the trip had been exceptional and Cinque Terre stands out in my memory for its ethereal natural beauty. A cluster of Five small yet popular villages, this place is cut right out from a beautiful dream!
Being from one of the largest thriving metropolitan cities in the world, when I travel to other cities and marvel at their structures and progress I still feel at home. But travelling through beautiful villages with lush vegetation and the emerald blue sea..it was truly a one-of-a-kind experience. So I threw myself back by almost 3 weeks, in my mind it felt surreal to have gone to a place like that!
We had registered for a trek through the five villages of Cinque Terre through a website, that my partner had come across and found great reviews about. Walkabout Florence , organizes these treks in and around Florence and have many a happy customers raving about their great work, we being one of them now.
To participate in this trek, we had to meet the group early morning at the Florence train station and get going. It was till wee hours of the previous night that we were moving around Florence and exploring the little city. Despite that, we managed to wake up at the nick of time, get ready and take a bus ride to the station. We were greeted by Julian, one of our guides for the day. We boarded the bus and began our journey. The trail began from one of the villages in Cinque Terre and was to end in La Spezia. This was to be the last stop for our day trek. La Spezia has a lot of history, and the town has some spectacular buildings, with grand architecture.
We had reached the Liguria region of Italy, Cinque Terre is a UNESCO World Heritage site. We moved further up to the first of the five cluster villages Manarola. Here we began our trek by foot. We walked through the terraced farms, the way farming is done in this province has won it many accolades. From Manarola to the next village Corniglia we walked through the hills all the way staring at the stunning sight below. We saw the blue sea below, with two white specs jetting across the blue, while on our right were hills with small colorful houses dotted across farms.
As we trekked from one hill to the next we crossed rocky slopes, some wilderness, and steep mossy tracks. Towards the end of the tacks as we neared the next village, we could see the Corniglia standing against the blue sea. The beauty of the place was breath taking. As each of us took the last turn on a bend to face this point, we stood staring ahead, to take in the view. And to photograph this stunning locale.
We reached after a rough trek of at least 90 minutes, and then walked up to a restaurant to freshen up and have our lunch. We were served with some of the freshest ingredients from the sea and I loved the food! Some of the freshest sea herbed salads were on our plate as starters. They included, squids, fresh octopus, fish and some potato salad. The main course was a lovely Pasta with pesto sauce. The flavour was very rustic. The restaurant looked out to the sea , and as I ate each spoonful and looked out to the sea I knew that this is as close to heaven on earth as it could possibly get! We were sharing our table with a lovely young couple from Lebanon. It was great to meet them and exchange stories of our countries as we ate.
Post our lunch, we moved around this village to take some more photographs. And then headed to their train station to catch a train to the next village, Vernazza.The train station was however on the sea level. So we went down 350 stairs to the Corniglia railway station, all the time looking at the juxtaposition of the beautiful train lines running in between the sea and the foot of the hills.
At the station our guides handed us tickets to board the train for Vernazza. We arrived soon enough, and disembarked at this village. Here we walked around the little village, saw its little vegetable markets selling fresh produce. We picked up a few keepsakes, and had some of the finest gelatos here. It was recommended by Angel, one of our guides and fine it was! Sometime later, we walked back to the place where we were to meet our guide and move to the next village Monterosso.
This place opened up, as we walked along the beach-side and entered the village. We strolled slowly across the stores and restaurants, and came to a clearing. There was one large restaurant here, where we sat down to sample some seafood and white wine which this place is very famous for. We had our plate of seafood fritters and Sassarini white wine to go with it. The seafood was as fresh as it could get. The white wine complimented the seafood very well. After almost an hour, we strolled back towards the beach to take a few pictures. From here, we were to board onto a boat to sail to the last and final village of the cluster, Riomaggiore.
This little village also had similar stunning views, and colorful houses dotted over the hills. From the cruise it was an unbelievable sight. When we disembarked and walked around, we found stalls selling hot ready-to-eat seafood fritters. So we bought ourselves some street-food ala Cinque Terrre style and had a lovely time sitting and munching on them while watching locals and travelers go by.
We entered in a local shop and bought some more keepsakes and then finally met our guide-turned-friends Angel and Julian.They were indeed some of the coolest guides I have come across. Very unlike the run off the mill tour guides, they were more like travelers who are passionate about what they do. Loved that the fact that they were connecting with us casually and talking about their passion for travelling and cooking(in case of Julian!) We have recommended this trek to a bunch of people who are planning to visit Italy in the near future.
We took our final train from Rio Maggiore for La Spezia. From here we proceeded to Florence all the way thinking of the wonderful time that we had spent.
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