Cinque Terre

  We were really looking forward to visiting the Cinque Terre again! David and I came here on our honeymoon (almost 13 years ago) and were excited to see it again. Sydney joined David and I on our Cinque Terre excursion and Eric decided he wanted to stay in the kids club. Cinque Terre means “Five Towns” and they are all accessible via Train or you can walk between them. They are located on the Ligurian Sea in Northern Italy. The pastel colored houses are perched on the hillside. Once you start taking photos it hard to stop because everywhere you look there’s something incredible!

We caught the train to the first hill town (Riomaggiore) and when we stepped off the train we saw a huge mural that showed the workers as they were building the train tracks and tunnel. Most of the journey is through a tunnel in the rock that connects all 5 towns. Must have taken a long time to build. Before it was built the towns were isolated from each other and many residents never left their town. We walked up the hill of Riomaggiore and explored all the alleyways and found some stairs, which led us up to the top of the town with a panoramic view. There is only one main street with minimal cars. There was a green shuttle van that transported passengers to the top and bottom of the town. We nicknamed it “The Green Thing” because we kept having to get out of it’s way!

Every single town, no matter how small, has a church with incredible statues, artwork and pillars. This town was no exception. We stepped into a church that had arched ceilings, marble floors and appeared to also have ornate memorials and headstones perhaps for important deceased townspeople. They really make a big deal about their dead people!

Next we hopped on the train heading toward Vernazza, which is where we stayed on our previous visit. Vernazza is the only town with a natural harbor and is the most picturesque. It is no longer a hidden gem but has become very well known so can become overrun with tourists. We saw a lot of school children on field trips (what a great field trip!) We decided to eat lunch in Vernazza and we ended up at the same restaurant that we had eaten at many years ago. It was still delicious! We started chatting with the couple at the next table and found out that they were from Portland! Pretty funny!

We had a great time and Sydney enjoyed getting all the attention from her Mom and Dad. Great to have a girl with me so we could do some shopping! We each found unique rings to buy and I also bought two really vibrant oil paintings of the Cinque Terre. The Italian artist has a shop in Vernazza and we talked to his wife quite a bit. She is American and has lived in Vernazza for 10 years. She met her future husband when she was on vacation and then moved there. Wow that would be quite a lifestyle change!

In all this walking around I never mentioned the fact that it was raining. That’s because it didn’t tarnish our experience at all. In fact it kind of made it more fun! We were able to see most of Riomaggiore before it started raining hard. It was almost coming down sideways as we were waiting for our train. Then the lightning storm began. It was very dramatic to watch. We’d see the flash of lightning and then hear the loud boom! Sydney freaks out with lightning so I have a picture of her cowering behind a building.

In Vernazza we ducked into a Gelateria since it was beckoning us and just sat inside and watched the rain while enjoying our gelato. As we told Sydney, it’s all part of the adventure and makes for a good story. She kept telling us how much fun this was so this will be a very good memory for her.

Once we got back to the ship we picked up Eric in the Kids club and he had a great day too so everyone was happy! Next stop is Villefranche in the south of France!