Another relaxed start to the day today, with left-over pizza for breakfast, a second load of laundry, and a plan for visiting the Cinque Terre.

Getting to the Cinque Terre from La Spezia is very easy – on the train it’s the next five stops, and a CT pass will give you unlimited access to the trails and trains. We walked over to the train station, found a ticket agent who was pleased to see Canadian passports for identification, filled in the appropriate fields and made our way to the platform where trains come about every 10-15 minutes.

Based on recommendations we started our tour in Vernazza, which has a great variety of shops and cafes. We wandered through all of the little boutiquey stores and gaped at the colourful buildings built into the rocks, and found ourselves at Ristorante Luca right next to the water.

We had a lovely lunch as we watched the waves crash on the rocks – trofie with pesto sauce, insalate di mari, and insalate caprese – all of which were excellent. Apparently pesto originated in this region so it’s no surprise it was so good. We people watched and enjoyed the view, and then did a little shopping before moving on to Manarola.

Manarola is like Vernazza – in fact each of the towns on the Cinque Terra are similar, and clearly geared in their presentation to tourists, but it’s equally clear that these were, and are, still fishing communities. Manarola was also less geared to the cafe crowd, but it was a cinch to find gelato and we enjoyed a treat as we walked down to the ocean.

Ideally, you are also at the Cinque Terra to enjoy a hike from town to town – it is certainly possible to go through all five towns in a day. In the spirit of experiencing the hike, we attempted to go from Manarola to Riomaggiore along the main trail but we weren’t far out of town before our way was blocked by a restoration project and we were forced to turn around. There are other trails to take, but next closest was rated “expert” and would have taken much longer. We did see the Via Dell Amore and all the locks attached to the fence before we returned.

Instead we took the train to Riomaggiore where we enjoyed an outdoor craft market, shopped a little more (Sharon and Mimi got their “European shades” here) and then found a nice sidewalk cafe where we dined on spaghetti a shared charcuterie board with some wine – we had lots to eat and it was also delicious! We sat and chatted about what we might do in La Spezia tomorrow, and sometime after nightfall we made our way back to the train, and then to our condo.

It was a lovely day! Tomorrow will be a bit more of an unstructured day – we had though to see the Castello San Giorgio but although they are open on Mondays, they close just after noon, and getting out early on a travel day doesn’t seem likely when we still have to pack up 🙂

Then on to Rome!