Hey Cool People!!
So we spent a few days in La Spezia & Cinque Terre in Northern Italy. Here is what we did:
Day 81 Friday, August 7th - We started off the morning in Florence and hopped on the bus to La Spezia. We were staying in a cute little rental right by our pick-up / drop-off point in La Spezia. We got into La Spezia at around 10:30 am. When we finally got into our room, we decided to relax a bit and take a short nap.
After our nap, we decided to do a little walking around La Spezia. Our walk took us to a small little out door market after failing to find the water front at first. We didn't last very long outside because it was extremely hot!!!
For dinner the first night, we decided to go to the market and grab a few things to make our own dinner. Our dinner consisted of, of course, a bottle of wine, bread, cheese, meat, pesto, chips and cookies for dessert. After dinner, we all decided to huddle around Lydia's I-Pad and have a "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" marathon to relive our time in Greece.
Day 82 Saturday, August 8th - Today started out early to go explore the five villages of Cinque Terre ( Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso ). We took the short walk to the La Spezia Centrale train station to get our Cinque Terre Treno Card, which would give us unlimited train pass in the Cinque Terre area for the day and access to the nature trails.
We began by taking the train to Riomaggiore. When we go there, we walked around a bit, then got a little frustrated because the main trail from Riomaggiore to Manarola was closed and we couldn't find the alternate route. So, we decided to take the train directly to Corniglia since the main trail from Manarola to Corniglia was also closed. When we got to Corniglia, we walked around the village for a little bit, found a lookout point to take a few pictures and made our way to the nature trail from Corniglia to Vernazza.
It was hot, which didn't make the idea of hiking super existing. Luckily for us, the trail had areas of shade, so it wasn't completely unbearable. The hike from Corniglia to Vernazza took about an hour to an hour and a half. When we go to Vernazza, we found a small stony beach where we took a few pictures. Since we were planning to go to the beach at Monterosso, we decided to continue to explore the village rather than relax at the beach in Vernazza.
In Vernazza, we stopped for a fresh seafood cone snack. I have never been a big fan of seafood, but since coming to Europe and tasting the fresh stuff, I am a hooked. We walked around a bit and took a few more pictures before deciding to take the train from Vernazza directly to Monterosso rather than attempt the hike.
Monterosso was probably the most touristy of the five villages and had the best beach. When we got to the town we made our way directly to the beach. I know I have said this a million times by now, but it was hot; the sand burned the bottom of your feet and, in the direct sunlight on the beach, you were sweating like a mo-fo. Lydia and Jess took a quick dip in the water to cool off, while I sat on the beach to watch our stuff. When they made their way back to our stuff, we decided to get out of the sun and into some air-con. I didn't need to get into the water, I just needed to get our of the sun. We probably spent a total of 20 minutes at the beach in Monterosso before deciding to leave.
We took the train back to La Spezia to clean-up and cool down a bit before heading out for dinner. We decided to go to Manarola for dinner because that was (1) the one village we skipped in the morning and (2) had some of the more iconic views of Cinque Terre.
At around 7:30 pm we took the train into Manarola and sat down at a local sea food restaurant. We each got some form of seafood pasta. I believe Jessica got spaghetti cooked in a salam sauce, Lydia got a shrimp pasta cooked in a squid ink sauce, and I got a pasta dish cooked with calamari and muscles. Everything was absolutely amazing. After dinner, we made our way to the water front to take a few pictures and then found the nearest gelato shop for some refreshing gelato.
We made our way back to La Spezia around 10:30 pm, where we packed our stuff for the bus ride to Nice the day. That night we were all in bed pretty early.
Seafood Cone
