Day 4, Heading North - Seaside in Cinque Terre

It was a rainy morning in Rome. Too rainy. Our minds have had a little history and art overload, so it was with pleasure that we left Rome for an entirely different slice of Italy - into the north, past Tuscany and into Liguria. Our first destination was La Spezia, the entry point into the Cinque Terre, or "five lands". In La Spezia we basically never left the train station - we bought tickets to Vernazza, the Cinque Terre card we need to hike the trails, and had lunch at McDonald's. Not our first (or second, third, etc..) choice but it's all there was. We had a couple of Italian sandwiches that actually weren't too bad. AFter 45 minutes or so we jumped on the train to Cinque Terre.

Train travel here is surprisingly simple, once you figure out how the routes work and how to get tickets. We'd read that there's no real need to reserve tickets in advance, as trains rarely sell out and even if one does there's likely another coming along in another hour or two. We bought tickets in Rome, on an automatic ticket machine - very simple, and even in English. Riding the train, although not exactly posh comfort, was actually pretty nice. It's one of the more enjoyable and relaxing four-hour trips I've had, but it might just have been the relief of not walking constantly after 2 1/2 days of sightseeing in Rome.

Once in Vernazza, we found or hotel (La Mala) and called to get someone to meet us and let us in. So far we've only stayed in B&B-type accommodations. They give us the key and we come and go as we please. It turned out that our reservation for La Mala didn't actually exist, at least not for the day we'd requested (even though we were able to produce an email saying "Your booking is conferm Room 26 for 29 May"). Luckily, the room was still unreserved so we got it anyway. It's a nice little house, converted into four guest rooms. Hardwood floors, solid white decor, a nice marble shower - it's all crisp and clean and feels like a spa - particularly with the ocean nearby.

Vernazza (and all the five towns of the Cinque Terre) are perched basically on the side of a mountain range, right at the edge of the sea. It's not obvious why anyone would want to settle a town here, other than the fantastic scenery. Getting anywhere usually requires either a steep climb or a steep descent - the countryside is covered with sharply terraced olive and lemon groves. Just getting up to our hotel took a pretty strenuous ascent up several flights of stairs.

After getting settled in, we relaxed on the balcony behind our room for a bit - it overlooks the Ligurian Sea and rocks below. Our room has several windows that we can open to let in the sound of crashing and booming from the surf below. It's quite relaxing. We finally headed out to check out Vernazza. There's not a lot to it - the entire main street is about 200 yards long. There are a few touristy souvenir shops, and a lot of restaurants. We made the climb up to Ristorante Castello, situated near the Vernazza Castello, a lookout tower from the days when pirates were an issue. The restaurant is high on the cliffs overlooking Vernazza, and has a magnificent view of the harbor and breakwaters coming in from the sea. Dinner was relaxing and rather drawn out. We had wine, some great pasta, and a couple of almost too-sweet pieces of cake for dessert. After dinner we strolled downtown for a bit, then returned to our room to write this post. And that's where we are now - just finishing up a relaxing, fairly carefree day. Tomorrow we head up into the hills to explore the hiking trails in and around the five villages. Hopefully we'll have a chance to see all five over the next two days before heading to Florence on Friday.