Cinque Terra

Miles from Home - Forgot to check
Firsts / Highlights - First time in the Italian Riviera, hike from Monterosso to Riomaggiore, ferry from Riomaggiore to Monterosso
Miles Ridden - 0 miles
Vertical Feet - 0 ft
Route - See map in post.
People - Brad Frazier



This post is from June 3, 2009.

As difficult as yesterday was, today was exceptional.

We arrived in Sestri Levante late last night due to the train delays, but we made it. We were fortunate to get into our hotel at all. We saw the sign turn off as we approached from the train station by foot. We had some communication difficulties with the front desk person, but we were able to get checked in. He took us to our room and we discovered that a “double room” meant two twin beds pushed together in a room that was 12’ x 12’. With a little pantomime negotiation, we were able to be moved to a room with a little more breathing space. Once we were in our room, the desk manager gave us a key to the back door, turned out the lights, left the hotel. He was gone and we were on our own.

The reason we are in the Riviera is to see Cinque Terra, which is now managed as an Italian National Park. The Cinque Terra is a series of 5 seaside fishing towns that were formerly only accessible from the sea. The rugged terrain makes any other form of access challenging. Over the years, a road and a railroad have been built to connect them, but the preferred method to see them is a hiking trail. From north to south, the towns are Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore.

Since we are trying to squeeze 3 destinations into Brad’s week-long stay, we only had one chance to do the hike. Fortunately, the weather cooperated with a perfect day, and we were able to get it done. Brad had plans to hike half of the day and find a beach to relax. It was so spectacular, however, those plans changed as we went along.

For future reference, I think the technique we used to see Cinque Terra is one of the better ways to do it. A variation of this plan was suggested to me by Don and Jane Volta on my Experience Plus trip a few weeks ago. Here is how we did it.

1) Stay overnight in a town near Cinque Terra (in our case Sestri Levante).
2) Take the morning train to the northern-most or southern-most town. We selected the north end to start, which was a good idea because it placed the most difficult part of the hike at the beginning.
3) Hike the trail through all five towns
4) Take a ferry back to the starting town so you can see the towns from the sea as well as from land.
5) Take the evening train back to Sestri Levante

Since the hike took about six hours (including lunch), it was a full day.

The ferry loading process was interesting. I have never seen a commercial ferry that has no dock. This boat approaches the shore head-on and gets within 5 feet of the loading platform. They throw ropes ashore and tie off. With the boat pitching in the waves, a plank is extended from the bow to the loading platform and passengers load and unload. The captain constantly applies and relieves throttle to keep the boat in position as waves try to carry it into the platform. Once everyone is on board, they retract the plank and go full speed backwards away from the platform. It requires some skill, but they pull off this maneuver many times every day. I wonder how many passengers need to be retrieved from the water each year.

This is a day where pictures will say more than words, so here are some pictures that give a flavor of the day.











Tomorrow is a travel day. We leave the Riviera and go to Venice.