Cinque Terre

Portovenere from the ferry

A very busy day today.  Left our farm house and drove down to La Spezia, got the ferry from La Spezia to Riomaggiore via Portovenere.  Interesting to see Portovenere from the water after our visit yesterday.  Stopped at Riomaggiore with the intention of walking as much of the Cinque Terre as we could.  Had a good look around Riomaggiore (mainly because we didn’t know where to go) then walked towards Manarola.  Great walk (known as Via dell’Amore – the walk of love) with sensational views.  Stopped briefly then set off on the next leg to Corniglia, couldn’t get to Corniglia due to a landslide.  The only alternative was to walk to the top of the mountain and follow the road around.  This would have added about 5 kilometres to the walk (with a couple of mountains in between), thought better of it and returned to Corniglia and took the ferry to Monterosso where we were ready for lunch.

Finally had our fish at the beach, accompanied of course with cold beer and wine.   Got to use some sunscreen although it got a bit cloudy later.  Avoided all the rain thank goodness.

There were lots of tour groups in the area today so a lot of the time we battled getting through bus loads of tourists.  We took hundreds of photos, none of them can even come close to depicting the beauty of the area and the precarious nature of their building codes.  We don’t know how more houses haven’t slid into the sea.  From the boat we can see landslides all along the coast with houses perched in between, maybe they know more about the state of the foundations than we do.

Got the train back to La Spezia and walked around the city centre for a while before finally getting back in the car and home to rest our weary bones.  No trouble getting to sleep tonight.

Vernon on Cinque Terre

Riomaggiore

Pam on the walk

The walk - towards the tunnel

Pam paying the busker in the tunnel

Pam holding on tight.

Manarola

Vernon walking away from Manarola

Our ferry terminal at Manarola - the man on the slab of concrete at the bottom had the job of catching the rope from the boat and pushing all the reluctant passengers up the gangway.

Got some dodgy tour guide to take this photo - gives you an idea of our lunch location.

What we could really see while we were having lunch.

Swimmers in the Mediterranean and sunbathing on the rock.

Steps going forever in La Spezia - no wonder the Italians are thin!!

The entry to our farm house.