But first, we had to make a train ride down to La Spezia to find out why we couldn't purchase our train ticket to Turin the following day in order to catch our plane to Paris.
Turns out, there was going to be a train strike out of Florence on Friday. We had one option - catch the 7:01 AM train out of La Spezia. To catch this train, we had to be on the 4:56 AM train out of Vernazza. Our flight to Paris from Turin wasn't until 5:10 PM. It was going to be a long day!
With tickets purchased, we took the train up to Riomaggiore to have lunch at a Rick Steve's recommended site, La Lampara, before starting the trail up to Vernazza. The food was good - especially for lunch. I had a little Pizza al Mare - the seafood toppings were great, but the pizza crust was not so good - it was premade and heated. Candice had Spaghetti al Mare - which she enjoyed. The highlight was meeting the owner, Cesare, who was really very nice. He came over and asked where we were from and when he learned we were in Italy for our honeymoon, he seranaded Candice with "Ciao Bambina." It was great! Here's Candice and Cesare:
After lunch, we started the hike. Here's a view of the trail leaving Riomaggiore:
The trail linking Riomaggiore to Manarola is called the "Via dell'Amore" because it enabled young lovers between the two villages to meet more easily. They would leave messages on the walls and meet up later - However, the tradition has evolved over the years - and now it's really just grafitti:
Manarola is just a 15 minute walk along the trail. We quickly walked through the town and browsed at a couple of stores. There was a hand-painted pottery store that had a lot of really nice plates, platters, olive oil bottles, etc - and Candice wanted one of the platters. The problem was we had no room in our bags for any bulky items - and shipping a large platter would cost over 100 Euro! The platter was 140 Euro, meaning with the current exchange rate, it would have been about $325. It wasn't THAT nice! Oh well
Back on the trail - and on to Corniglia. Here's a quick look back on Manarola:
This section is pretty flat too, but it's not paved with concrete - it's more like small to medium sized stones - and many of them are pointy and make it so so you really have to pay attention to where you are stepping. The view though is great!
Corniglia is up on a hill - and strangely, the train station is at the bottom of that hill. Take a look at the next picture - in the distance, you can see people walking up a series of steps away from the station. The steps take you up the side of a cliff from the station at the bottom to the pink and yellow buildings above - and then there is a paved road taking you up to the main part of the town. (Click on the picture for more detail)
There is a little sign at the bottom of the steps - notice the "You are here" indicator at the bottom of the steps:
It's a good thing we didn't decide to stay in this town - as walking up all those steps was hard enough with just our small packs! I can't imagine how hard it would have been with 50 lb packs on our backs.
At the top of the steps, here's a look back at Manarola. Even though it was relatively flat, this part of the hike took about 1 hour.
Time to get on the plane back to Atlanta - Next up - Corniglia to Vernazza.
