Cinque Terre, Italy
June 9th, 2010
As I lay in a lush, comfy bed at the Mar Mar hostel, listening to school children playing outside of my window, with sea salt still dried on my skin, a fresh tan on my face, and a belly full of seafood, gnocchi, and wine, I realize I have found heaven… Cinque Terre, Italy. When I say that this is the most beautiful place I have ever seen, I absolutely mean it. It is breathtaking. I’m never leaving…
To put in perspective how much I anticipated coming here, for the past year I had a picture of Riomaggiore on my work PC desktop background. Every day that I begrudgingly hauled my ass into the lab, all it took was a boot up of that monitor… I knew I was working that day so that I could be here today. When I walked out of the train tunnel and into the port of Riomaggiore and laid my eyes upon the scene that I had stared at for countless hours on that computer, it was the single most rewarding moment of this trip. All of the hard work, saving, planning, and traveling had led me to the place I knew I would instantly fall in love with.
The Brits and I arrived in town around noon, but they couldn’t get a room at my hostel. Thus, they had to head to another village to find a place to stay. I ultimately headed out to explore Riomaggiore and feast! My god the food here is so good! I climbed the steps to the top of the port and found a small restaurant with tables that faced the ocean. I sat down, ordered a delicious white wine that is locally made in Cinque Terre, and attempted to decipher the Italian menu as I watched locals cliff dive off a 60 foot crag. I ordered a plate of seafood that was so good I thought I was dreaming, and a bowl of gnocchi that rivaled my grandfather’s.
I ended up just sitting there for about three or four hours, ordering Peroni beers and watching the sunset in the prettiest place I had ever been. There was no need to be the gregarious, ultra-social Batty finding fellow travelers whilst solo in Europe; this was a moment of solace, tranquility, and inner peace. I slept better that night than any other the entire trip.
The next morning, I met up with the Brits at 9 am, for today was the day that we would tackle the Cinque Terre hike! I had read up on this trek many times, and heard it was roughly eight miles over beaches, cliffs, vineyards, and mountain tops. What they don’t mention is that it’s more like 12 miles when you take into consideration the absurd number of steps you must climb to get over these mountains! We took the train to Monterrosso and started there, since that leg of the trip is much harder and we wanted to get it over with while we were fresh. The beach in Monterrosso is insanely gorgeous, rivaling anything in the Caribbean. We dove into the crystal-clear blue waters and swam for hours.
We then headed for Verranazza, which required a roughly two-hour hike. You are walking on paths that are literally a foot wide, with people heading in both directions, carefully maneuvering past each other, because to your side is a cliff with no railings! I couldn’t comprehend the danger at times… this would never be allowed in the states! If you fall, there is a good chance you could easily die.
But that didn’t hinder us; we pressed on through lush grape fields, dense forests, drank from trickling waterfalls, dove off of cliffs into the cool sea, and continued the trek through Corniglia, Manarola, and finally back into Riomaggiore.
By the end of it, we all had bleeding limbs, blisters, sun burn, and a huge desire for a bed, but the experience was one of the best of my life. At every turn, I was face to face with such awe-inspiring beauty that I had to continually remind myself this was real life.
I know this blog is short, and I know I didn’t do the Cinque Terre any justice in describing how incredible it was (I’m positively exhausted). So to close it out, I implore you to just look at the photos; they will do a better job than I could ever do in a million years at depicting the wonder of this Italian gem. Do whatever it takes to visit this place once in your life. I did.
-Batty
