Sunday morning, Madeline and I got up bright and early to meet the Florence for Fun group going to Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre translates literally to "five lands." It is in the region of Liguria, and is composed of five different towns: Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso. What makes Cinque Terre so special is that the towns are built into the cliffs along the southern coast of Liguria. The towns are famous for their colorfully-painted homes--we learned that the reason for this was so that the fishermen and farmers that lived in these villages could easily locate their homes and families from the sea or fields while they were out working during the day. The region is famous for their grapes, basil, honey, olive oil, lemons, seafood, pesto, white wine, and focaccia bread. Cinque Terre is absolutely beautiful, and we were lucky enough to explore the area by hiking from town to town.
It took about two hours by bus to get to Cinque Terre. We weren't able to see Riomaggiore due to weather conditions, so we went straight to Manarola and hung out in that town for awhile. I was amazed by all of the different types of flowers, plants and trees that they grew there. There were hydrangeas everywhere, but we also saw bamboo-like shoots, cherry trees, lemon and lime trees, pansies and all different types of wildflowers. There was a rocky area just off the coast where we went to get a good view of the town and the sea--a perfect photo opp. We saw a few brave divers jumping off the rocks and into the sea.
Terraces carved into the land to grow crops
Carts for transporting grapes and olives up the hills
Town clock tower
Kaylin and her new rock-climbing friend, Jeremy
KU girls! Kaylin, me, Catie, Madeline and Haley
After our extensive photo shoot, we explored Manarola. As always, we were hungry and wanted to try some of the food that Cinque Terre is famous for. We found a focacceria, where we tried our first Ligurian focaccia bread. I'm not kidding when I say it was by far the best bread I've tasted in my entire life. I could eat just this bread every single day for the rest of my life and be perfectly happy with that.. SO GOOD. After we ordered, we took our bread, sat in the town square, and watched some little Italian boys play soccer with our tour guides.
The next town we went to was Corniglia. We had a couple of hours here, so we picked a cute outdoor cafe to eat lunch at. I ordered the gnocchi pesto--a specialty of Cinque Terre. It was really good, but also very rich. We explored the town for a bit. There were a lot of areas with amazing views of the sea and the coast. And of course, we didn't forget to get our daily gelato serving!
Next, we hiked from Corniglia to Vernazza. The hike was a nice change of pace, and there were so many beautiful views from the path that we took.
Once we got to Vernazza, we headed to the train station to catch a train to the next town. Unfortunately, though, the train was delayed by an hour and a half because we had an earthquake! We didn't feel anything when it happened, but apparently it was an aftershock of the earthquake that happened in Tuscany a couple days before. The delay was definitely a bummer because we didn't end up getting to spend any time on the beach in the next town. But, we did get to see a precious elderly man play the accordion with his even more precious puppy, so that was a fun distraction while we waited.
Once we finally arrived in Monterosso, we only had about 30 minutes to spend there, so we decided it wasn't worth it to go down to the beach. We ate some pizza on focaccia bread and hung out on the pier until it was time to head back to Florence. The beaches in Monterosso were so nice and really different from the ones we saw the weekend before in Positano. The sand was much more fine and the beach wasn't rocky at all.
