Beautiful Cinque Terre Italy

This past weekend we had a great opportunity to visit Italy for the first time (and I'm sure not the last time as it is wonderful!). We found some cheap tickets to Pisa, Italy on Ryan Air...only 6 euros one way and 12 the other...of course when you add in all the fees it isn't quite as cheap as it sounds, but still an awesome deal! So we headed down there for a 3 day weekend! We arrived in Pisa at 12 Noon on Saturday, picked up our rental car and headed straight for the leaning tower. The weather was absolutely perfect...mid 70's and not a cloud in the sky! This was quite a blessing coming from cold, rainy Brussels. Pisa itself was not much to write home about, but it was pretty spectacular as you made your way through the old wall surrounding the tower grounds and took in the Leaning Tower and the surrounding structures. Here are some pics from our time here.

And taking our turns holding up the tower of course :o)

Autumn almost got it...haha!

And here's a pictures looking through the wall I mentioned.

After walking around the plaza and meandering the many vendors around the tower we headed back to our car and towards the coast for our next stop...the Cinque Terre (pronounced CHINK-weh TAY-reh)!! I had read about this spot on my favorite Brussels blog so when we had the chance to go we just couldn't pass it up. The Cinque Terre is five small fishing villages nestled into the coastline of the Mediterranean sea and it is seriously one of the most beautiful landscapes I have ever seen. There are hiking trails that connect the small villages and the plan was to hike all of them. I'm pretty sure people thought we were crazy for taking Autumn on a hiking trip up in the mountains, but Jacob was such a trooper and carried her on his back for most of the hike (I attempted it for about half a mile and then gave in and let him carry her...it was no easy feat for sure!).

We ended up finding a hotel in between two of the small villages (Vernazza and Corniglia). The hotel Locanda Valeria, was a little B&B WAY up on the hillsides! Check out the view from this place!

As you can imagine getting there was quite tricky as well. The roads are so narrow and winding I really feared for our lives at many points! I felt sick with worry by the time we arrived and hoped we would never have to get back in to that car (but unfortunately we did as we were out in the middle of no where)! So two things I recommend for anyone hoping to hike the Cinque Terre in the future...find a B&B or hotel IN one of the towns (not up in the mountains) AND take the train there. I know now we could have easily taken the train from Pisa and saved some of the stress that came along with the driving!

We had hoped to hike the trail from Vernazza to Monterosso that evening (it is said to be the hardest of the four trails), but we didn't make it down to town until 5:30 or so and the parking attendant was adamant that we not go up on the trails this late...so we decided to just wait and do it the next day. It turned out to be just fine too because one of the trails was closed due to a rock slide, so we probably would have regretted breaking it up like that. We ended up just driving to Monterosso for a quick dinner and then back to the hotel (again a terrible decision...now we were far from our hotel and it was dark...ugh...I'm still cringing about driving down these roads at night)! But we made it...and we all cozied up in our tiny room and turned in for the night.

As a funny aside...Autumn was just sleeping in bed with us...and she woke up at one point screaming. I grabbed my watch and looked at it blurry eyed to see what time it was and said...oh it's 6:15 AM...we might as well get up and around for our day of hiking. So I jumped in the shower and got all ready to go. Just as Jacob was about to jump in and I'm putting on my watch I realized I must have looked at it upside down...it is now only 1:45 AM! Oh my goodness...whoops!! So we all jump back in to bed and sleep till 8...ha! We definitely got a jump on the day :o)

So here is a map of the Cinque Terre so you can get an idea of what we were doing.

We drove down to Vernazza to take the train to Monterosso. We ended up buying an all day train/trail path...so we only needed to validate it once and could get off and on where ever we needed. We had planned to hike all the way from Monterosso to Riomaggiore, but unfortunately the third leg was closed...boo. We did hike all three of the other trails though and our bodies were probably grateful we couldn't do the fourth. Ha...there were LOTS of steps...lots of up hill...LOTS of hard work, but I would do it all again in a heart beat!! Here are some of my favorite pictures from the trip (Note: unfortunately I had my camera on manual all day thinking that would give me the best images, but because of the beautiful sunshine some of them got a little washed out...I did a little editing and they are better, but they still only give you a glimpse of how amazingly beautiful this area is!!)

We're off!

Are we there yet?!?! Too bad we just started :o)

A look back at the first village, Monterosso

It's getting smaller :o)

Overlooking the second village, Vernazza

More of beautiful Vernazza!

Spectacular Views!

Entering Vernazza where we had a quick lunch

and lots and LOTS of Water!

Headed to Corniglia...looking back on Vernazza

and even Monterosso far in the distance!

The first views of Corniglia...up on the hillside!

You can just make out Manarolo in the distance too.

Almost to Corniglia...

I just love how they hug the hillside...

can you imagine living here?

Manarolo from the train station...coming and going...

we were kinda bummed this part of the trail was closed,

but we enjoyed a nice break on the 3 minute train ride!

Our last hike along the "Via dell'Amore" or Lover's Lane

Similar to what we saw in Paris...you secure a padlock along the

bridge here to seal your love forever! What a beautiful idea :o)

And at last we had finally arrived...

Riomaggiore...the last of the five villages.

We had planned to then take the Ferry back to our car in Vernazza, but the winds had picked up and they had stopped sailing for the day. I thought that would have been a great way to see all the villages one last time from a different perspective. Instead we hopped on the train and eventually made it back to town (someone pulled the emergency alarm on the train so it took quite a bit longer than it should have).

The next morning we headed back to Pisa and the airport...back down the winding roads...ugh! This time poor Autumn even threw up...I told you they were bad...but we all survived and are home safely now back in cold, rainy Brussels :o) I'm very much looking forward to our next adventure as a family! I wouldn't trade these experiences for the world!!

For reference in case anyone is interested...the first hike from Monterosso to Vernazza was definitely the hardest...lots of stairs! It took us approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes. The second hike to Corniglia was only slightly easier and took us 1 hour and 15 minutes. And the third hike was an easy stroll along the Via dell'Amore going from Manarolo to Riomaggiore and took only 15 minutes.

Click here to view the full album of Pisa and the Cinque Terre.