Meng's Travels: Cinque Terre

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Cinque Terre

Cinque Terre means "five lands." It is made up of five villages perched on the side of a stretch of cliffs on the top left of Italy's "boot." The five villages are Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Maranola, and Riomaggiore. This could be one of the most beautiful areas in Italy, if not Europe. It is flooded with tourists in the summer and even at this time of the year (October), there are still a lot of tourists. It is especially popular with American tourists; everywhere I went, I hear American accents. At this time of the year, it's mostly older tourists. These have been fishing villages for centuries but tourism is now a big part of the economy. You see a lot of private rooms and apartments for rent. There are also many small hotels and restaurants. There are also a ton of souvenir shops as well.
We had planned to stay there for only an afternoon, just passing by on the way to Nice. But when we stopped in Monterosso, I just said this is too beautiful a place to spend just a few hours. We ended up getting an apartment for the night and spent the night in Monterosso. I should have planned better and spend maybe 2-3 days there at least. There is so much to do: swimming, hiking, just strolling around the towns, boat cruises, going to neighboring villages, etc. The nice thing is there are five equally beautiful towns and they are all different. The local trains stop at all the towns so you go from one to another by taking the train. Or, if you prefer, you can do it the old-fashion way - walk the trails between the towns. They are not easy hikes though. As you can see from the pictures below, the towns are high up on the mountains. I hiked part of the way on one of the trails and the view is just gorgeous. The first picture below was taken from one of the trails and there were a few photographers waiting for the sun to take a sunset shot of the town of Maranola.