Day 5 - Hiking the 5Terre

Just an update - the internet situation here in the Cinque Terre is unfortunately fairly dim. Rome spoiled us a bit - we had wireless internet right in our room. Florence may be similar, and I believe we'll have wi-fi again in Venice. The Cinque Terre is stuck somewhere around 1982 - when it comes to the lifestyle and atmosphere of the five towns, it's great. When it comes to the technology, not so much. I can actually dial into an internet connection using my laptop, but the hotel charges us as if it were a pay call, so I'm on dial-up and being charged by the minute. Not a great situation. If you're reading this before we've made it to Florence, then we figured out a way to post. Otherwise, sorry for the lack of posts. Just think - ten years ago this would have been nearly impossible.

So today was our first full day in the Cinque Terre, and what a day it was. We got up this morning still in Vernazza, staying at La Mala. We had the window cracked all night long, the sea air and sound of crashing waves lulling us comfortably to sleep. Jill called it the best night of sleep she's had in weeks. I didn't want to get out of bed, even at 9am. We had to get breakfast and get checked out and over to Monterosso, though, because today was our first full day of hiking the Cinque Terre trails. There's a whole network of trails here, running between the five villages, and several others heading up into the hills to many smaller other towns and villages that aren't part of the "Cinque Terre", at least not officially. Our goal today was the main coastal trail - trail #2, starting from Monterosso and passing through Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore.

I mentioned yesterday that the villages are basically carved out of the sides of mountains, and the trails are too. The trail leading from Monterosso to Vernazza is definitely the toughest, so it was serendipitous that we started with it. Heading out of Monterosso we climbed through lemon groves and grape vineyards, walking on stone trails that had been laid into the sides of the hills. It wasn't quite what I was expecting, but the trails were typically in good shape and we had no real trouble. The only hard part was that the trails, at least at first, are just that - HARD. Huge climbs up one or two hundred steps, followed by steep descents, followed by a couple hundred more steps up, then the same back down. The trek from Vernazza to Corniglia was easier than the first hike from Monterosso, and Jill still counted 738 steps that we climbed up (that doesn't include any of the steps down - there were probably 738 of those too.)

The good part was that the views were simply breathtaking - high up on the hills, you can see out over the water for miles. We're lucking into some great weather too - yesterday (a travel day) it was overcast and rainy, but today the skies were clear and a brilliant blue, and there were just enough cool breezes to keep it from being too uncomfortable. The hike to Vernazza took just over 90 minutes, and when we got there in mid-afternoon it was a great time to stop and have some yummy pesto pizza and a couple cans of cold Coke. We've mainly had water to drink since we got here, so the Cokes were a nice treat. After lunch we hit the trail again, heading down to Corniglia. The trails got progressively easier, to the point that the last trail between Manarola and Riomaggiore was only about 20 minutes long, and flat the whole way. After reaching Corniglia we had to stop and get our daily gelato fix. Jill had a cone with part chocolate mint and part vanilla, and I tried a cup with part frutti di bosco (mixed berry) and part honey. One of the local products is miele (honey), so the gelato was not only handmade, but with local honey. Quite tasty.

After the gelato we did the last two legs, then hopped on the train back to Monterosso. Final tally was 7 miles in about 6 hours, with stops for pictures, lunch, gelato, and shopping.
We finally made it to dinner at about 9pm. We ate at Ristorante Via Venti which, according to Rick Steves' Italy, was supposed to have a strawberry risotto that Jill wanted to try. They didn't unfortunately, but we did have a pasta with pear and cheese sauce that was just spectacular - imagine little bags of pasta with a sweet, almost cake-like pear filling, covered with a silky,creamy cheese sauce. In Jill's words, it was "just divine". Dinner was followed by dessert, where Jill got the closest thing to a brownie yet that she's found in Italy - a chocolate souffle. It was just as scrumptious as dinner, and possibly her favorite dessert so far - the fresh strawberries our last night in Rome were right up there too. (Note: Jill cannot bring home a chocolate souffle, either. Sorry.)

So now we're back in our room, hopefully able to post this in a bit. We'll have pictures again when we get to a place where we have high-speed access (Hopefully by Friday). From today, it's mostly just pictures of trees, water, and mountains, so nothing really fancy.
Hope everyone is doing well there - we know the boys are in good hands and are keeping busy. More to come...ciao!