Le Città dei Miei Sogni: Le Cinque Terre


You've seen the photos- I'm sure of it. It's an UNESCO World Heritage site and National Park unlike any other in the world. It was probably the first destination I put on my bucket list. They are the prettiest cliffside towns imaginable. The Cinque Terre.

I could not contain my excitement over the past couple of weeks leading up to our long weekend up in Liguria. I was so stoked- who could ask for more than some fun hiking in the most beautiful place ever with some amazing friends?

Saturday morning, nice and early, my friends and I got on a train from where we were staying in La Spezia to the closest town named Riomaggiore. There were little peeks of the ocean seen while the train went through a tunnel and there were collective gasps and yelps of excitement. Immediately upon exiting the train, the cameras were out and the fresh sea air was taken in. There was some random Asian woman who wanted a photo with me- but other than that odd distraction my eyes couldn't be peeled from the cliffside city ahead of me. My friends and I immediately headed down to the marina to get a closer look at the Mediterranean and climb some rocks. We bumped into local fishermen and fellow hikers along the way. As the morning continued, we stumbled upon Via dell'Amore where lovers place locks along the hiking trails to secure their love forever. It was SO romantic reading "Will you marry me?" and "From 10,000 miles away with love"- if any guy wants to steal my heart they have a pretty good shot if they try to do it there. 

When it was time for lunch, our mouths began to water at the pizza genovese with the pesto genovese that topped lots of it. Liguria's specialties consist of lemon flavors, an amazingly basil-bursting pesto, and thick-but-not-too-thick pizza. We also discovered our new favorite - farinata. Basically it's a thin cake of chickpea flour, water, oil, and salt. It's the most basic thing, but it's incredibly delicious. With watering mouths, we decided to take our lunch to the next town over called Manarola. We ate a joyous picnic on top of the rocks at the bottom of the port. Probably one of my favorite memories of our trip. We got random flavors of pizza and warm farinata and met a couple of "nosy" Spanish boys. 

Once we were reenergized, we hiked up to see the most scenic view of Manarola there is. It was simply SPECTACULAR. We also made our way over to the oceanside cemetery, which wasn't as grave as I expected (hahaha get it!?). There were lots of flowers outside the marble-made tombs of sorts, and they even had pictures of the deceased on the outside. Although, suspiciously some were smashed open...anyways, we made our way down the trail and looped around back to the ocean view. I wanted to just stay amongst the ocean breeze and the scenic city forever, but soon enough our train was calling us over to Corniglia.

Unfortunately, the rain picked up as we made our way to the highest of the 5 towns - but we didn't let that stop us! We went through the small streets and made our way to belvedere where we looked down to see the rocky cliffside and the blue waves below. Soon enough, that led to a desire for gelato and we devoured our sugar in order to continue our tour on foot. It was of course amazing. 

A long day of exploring can sure tire four girls out! We headed back to La Spezia for dinner, only to find it disappointingly dead on a Saturday night. In the end it didn't matter though because we each had a warm bowl of incredible trofi al pesto (sound familiar?) and energy for the next day.

Sunday there were still two cities to explore! We began the day in Vernazza where we can argue has the best shopping. Each town has an adorable center, but we definitely got to know Vernazza's the best as the wind picked up in the morning and made the hiking slightly more difficult to bare. We still got our views and even stuck it out through a gelato (or two...). Once we felt like we knew the streets well enough and bought some host family gifts, we checked the train schedule for the next stop: Monterosso al Mare.

Monterosso al Mare is the beachiest of the five towns because it really is marked by a beach. Its other signature is this strange old statue of a man carved into a cliff of the beach that seems to be struggling to hold the heavy rock up. It's quite a site. We spent lots of time walking along the docks and climbing on high rocks as the waves were really crashing hard. We goofed off absurd amounts and finally stumbled upon the center where we found hop scotch and jewelry stores. It was fun for all of us, but by then we were pretty worn out. After some more selfies and polaroids, we boarded the train so we could rest up before dinner.

We met up with another group from SYA for dinner where we all made sure to eat up some local pesto and homemade pasta. It was a spectacular night of gossip and giggles, and we made sure to get a lovely view at night of Manarola before we missed out. We parted ways and sadly my friends and I had to pack up our room for the next day's journey home.

I am honestly amazed by Le Cinque Terre. One of these days, I'm going to hike from one end to the other and cliff dive right into the Mediterranean on a warm summer day. What an amazing trip! Perchè doveva finire così presto!?


























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