The first town we visited in Cinque Terre was the northwesternmost town, Monterosso al Mare. All the five towns are connected by footpaths that you can hike. The paths between Monterosso and Vernazza (the next town over) and between Vernazza and Corneglia are the toughest ones. This hike took us about two hours through the hillside, which may not seem like a lot, but get this: it was probably around 40 degrees! Even though it was ridiculously hot we were walking through vineyards and lemon groves, which was awesome because it was a very typical countryside kind of scene...
Here at Monterosso, which is split into two sides by a rock formation, there was a beach which spanned the entire west side.
Here you can see the rest of the beach. Of the five towns Monterosso was the only one with a very sprawling beachfront, complete with rows of beach chairs and umbrellas. So unfortunately this made the town feel slightly "resort-y". And what do you know, we totally forgot our swimsuits on this amazingly hot day!
The west end of the beach, where there is a building built into a natural cliff. The building was some sort of private resort or club. Notice the cool rock sculpture carved into the cliff! He's sitting on the cliff and lifting the top part of it on his back.
Here's a view of the west half of Monterosso as seen from the dividing peninsula. See how long the beach runs!
And looking the other way is the other half of Monterosso. This other half is not as wide but runs deeper into the hill.
Random street in Monterosso!
Another random street in Monterosso, this time with some random Asian guy!
As the sign says, this is the way to Vernazza! This was the start of a very very VERY hot trek over to the second town. We think we needed about three times as much water as we carried! Even though it was tough it was totally worth doing. Walking between these towns is something you MUST do if you ever visit Italy.
A shot of the Eastern half of Monterosso as we're making our way to Vernazza.
Here you can see the path ahead of us in the hike, which has amazing views over the cliffside.
We're moving farther away from Monterosso!
Some stepped lemon groves and vineyards on the hillside on our walk.
Stairs on the hike...
On the other side of the hill is Vernazza. The path of the hike was great in that it was very varied in its proximity to the water and depth in the hills. You got a great variety of views depending on if you were low to the sea, or high up (like we are here in this photo).
Pretty! This is a narrow pathway up in the hills. On the right just outside of this photo is actually a very steep drop! Scary!
We see Vernazza!! It's very cute! It looks a lot closer than it actually is. We had to walk around the whole hill on the left before snaking back into the town. At this point we were low on water and dying of thirst! We got excited at seeing civilization but it was so close yet so far away (about another 45 minutes of walking)!!
Another pathway through vineyards up in the hills.
Vernazza's getting closer but still out of reach!
Every time we looked to see Vernazza it seemed close, but it was always farther away than we thought!
Between all these five towns the railroad goes through many hills and cliffs along the coastline. Here is a view of the railroad that links Monterosso to Vernazza. You can see the breakwater of Vernazza on the left side of this photo (we're looking Northwest in the direction of Monterosso).
A view of the small beachfront from the upper echelons of Vernazza. We were finally here!! Totally parched and exhausted we were on a mission to hunt down a (giant) bottle of ice-cold water.
A narrow alleyway between residential housing. It was very cute because it had laundry hanging out the windows, which all had flower boxes. Very typically Italian small town!
One of the main streets in Vernazza. No cars allowed!
So finally, we get a huge bottle of water and something Stefan was craving: lemon gelato! And holy shit, it was in a real carved-out Vernazza lemon! After the delicious gelato we got to suck on the frozen lemon. It wasn't the cheapest gelato but it was super refreshing, and worth every penny!
A shot of the beach from one end of the town. Most of the town sits in the hillside on the right hand side just out of the picture.
A shot of the harbour with the breakwater on the left.
A shot of the town from the edge of the breakwater. You can see all the people on the right of the photo sitting on the breakwater. It was a popular place to sit, eat, drink and relax, which we did many times!
A river running through the town.
After a cup of zabaione and kiwi gelatos in Monterosso, and the lemon gelato seen earlier, it was (of course) a good idea to have a THIRD gelato that day! This cup contained a cinnamon gelato and a nougat gelato.
Cliff had a hankering for an ice cream sandwich so he bought this sandwich with fior di latte gelato, which sort of tasted like whipped cream. Booooo.
Dinner time! With all the bad food we ate we decided it was best to just go with our gut when we went restaurant hunting. We found this place on the main drag in Vernazza which was not expensive (surprisingly!). And lo and behold, it was amazing! Our bad luck with food in Italy seemed to have ended in Cinque Terre.
Cliff's meal: Mussels stuffed with bread, milk, mortadella, eggs, parmesan, thyme, and pepper. They were amazing!
When Stefan saw this on the menu, it was listed as fresh pasta stuffed with fish, in a fresh tomato and olive sauce with zucchini and clams. As Stefan doesn't like clams they were nice enough to change it to shrimp. Also, since Stefan doesn't like eating non-descript fish, he had to find out what fish the pasta was stuffed with. When he found out it was sea bass he just about peed his pants with excitement!
If you look closely, you can see that the shrimp have their full shells on...tricky to eat, especially in a pasta dish. If any of you have seen "Pretty Woman" and remember the part when Julia Roberts is shucking the oyster and it flies halfway across the restaurant and a waiter catches it...well, Stefan had a "Pretty Woman" moment with a shrimp, but there was no waiter to catch it! Instead, some girl's hair caught a piece of shrimp, and the shell ended up a few tables away, amazingly missing everyone and hitting the floor! How no-one saw, we don't know, but it was some funny stuff! We just quickly turned back to our meals and kept eating!
This definitely ended up being Stefan's favourite meal in all of Italy. It was so tasty, and the beautiful setting made it that much better!
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