I can’t believe that we are in our 8thand final week of our Italy trip – it has gone so quickly, and the more people we meet and talk to the more places we add on to our ‘must see’ list. A recommendation from a couple of people has led us to the Cinque Terre area of NW Italy – somewhere that I don’t recall hearing of before but is absolutely brilliant. We are staying in Levanto which is one town up from the 5 villages of the Cinque Terre, and the campsite is just a couple of hundred metres from the sea and the town.
Sunset at Levanto
When we arrived on Sunday it was sunny and warm and the town was buzzing with weekend visitors. After a night of heavy rain and thunderstorms there were less people but still lots going on, especially as this is an area popular for surfers, mountain bikers and most of all walkers (Janet and Colin you need to come on a trip here!). We think that this accounts for the excessive number of VW camper vans all in one place, and it’s very multinational – from here I can see Dutch, Danish, Swiss, Italian and German vans (and one other Brit!). Had a great conversation yesterday with an older Italian couple in a VW T4 next to us. After some clumsy attempts in English and Italian (neither very successful) we discovered that he and I could both speak reasonable French. He was very excited when we showed him the map Paul has done of our trip around Italy (to be posted soon) and went to get his wife so he could show her and we then went on to have a whole conversation about where they lived, where they’d been in their van (many of the places we have visited in France),and their trip to England (on a coach, via Paris, stayed at the Ibis hotel in Chelsea). He was very charming and said that in their younger days they went on long trips too, but now they and their van are too old and stay closer to home.
Today (Tuesday) Paul and I have been exploring and walking, The Cinque Terre are five villages (Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore) set along some dramatic coastline and each perched on the edge of a cliff.
Riomaggiore
There are no cars allowed in the villages and so they are both super to look at and nice to wander around. We went on the train from Levanto where we are staying along to the furthest village Riomaggiore, a trip which took about 25 minutes, and then got off there to have a look around, then got back on the train and worked our way back along the coast. Between Manarola and Cornilgia we decided to hike the footpath, which took you 330 metres up, then along a ridge and back down again, taking about 2 hours in total. There are absolutely loads of footpaths in this area, all well marked, but several of them are closed following a major flash flood and landslide which happened almost a year ago. In true Italian style the park authority haven’t barricaded all of the closed paths but simply tell you that some are closed and it’s up to you to make sure you know which ones and thus don’t put yourself and others in danger. Luckily we’d found a helpful lady at the Tourist info office and she’d given us some advice.
Approaching Corneglia from the trail
The trails we followed were in a variable state of repair- lots of subsidence at the edge of a steep drop and some strategically placed vine wires to avoid, but the views were well worth it and this is an area we will definitely come back to in the future (bringing our mountain bikes as well next time).
t5ontour 