The Adventures of LorAx: February 2014

Day 3: Travel Day!

Our third day in Italy saw us traveling from the East coast of Italy on the end of the Adriatic Sea to the West coast and the Ligurian Sea. Destination: Cinque Terre! This journey was a 4-5 hour drive. We only made two stops, including one at a rest stop / gas station (packed with British cheerleaders jabbering on in thick accents as they headed to an international competition!), and one to take a picture of clouds rolling over the Appenine mountains as we passed through (and call our next housing contact via payphone, which thankfully we learned how to use in Venice).

For our time in the Cinque Terre region we stayed in Levanto, which is a medium-sized town just north of the five villages in the Cinque Terre chain (see map above). Once we left the main highway, we wound our way down from the Appenine Mountains to the Ligurian Coast along very twisty and narrow roads. We finally reached the center circle in Levanto where we met the owner of our next home-away-from-home, Niccolo. He guided us to the house along even more narrow and winding roads which he had obviously driven on many times before with his zippy little Moped. We pulled up to a beautiful cottage nestled amongst olive orchards in the hills surrounding Levanto.

After a long day in the car, we decided to stretch our legs at the beach in "downtown" Levanto.

Lorax loves skipping stones!

The beach-lined bay in Levanto. The chain of towns that makes up Cinque Terre are just beyond this seaside mountain. A two hour hike up and over or a 10 minute train ride straight through the bottom! Keep reading to see which option we chose.

Then we headed back to the house to clean up for dinner out on the town! Niccolo provided an excellent list of local restaurants to try, so we made our way back downtown for dinner at Ristorante da Rino on Via Guani (aka Via Garibaldi). Unbeknownst to us, Levanto is a pretty happening town at night so we had to kill some time by getting gelato while waiting for a table to open up. Who says you can't have dessert first?!? The food at da Rino was pretty delicious. I think we all had dishes that involved fresh seafood since we were so close to the sea. Yum! After a long day of travel and very full bellies we turned in for the night. The next morning we planned to get up early to start our epic trek through Cinque Terre.

Day 4:

Our plan for the Cinque Terre hike began with a train ride through the mountains to the first town, Monterosso. From there we would take the old goat trails along the coast to the other towns of Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore... or as far as we could make it!

Monterosso was quite beautiful, but we spent very little time here as it was a touch crowded and we were eager to start our long hike. Still, we didn't forget to stop and take a few shots as we began our ascent into the hills.

We knew that our planned route would throw us straight into the steepest section of the hike, but we hadn't quite expected just how many stairs there might be! Not only did we climb high along the cliffs and into the vineyards over the coast, but the trail also wound back down and up over and over again. As you can see, the trail also gets rather narrow at times!

The sights made it all completely worth it though. Between many of the outcropping cliffs ran small streams. Here we paused on a small foot bridge in the shade.

Here you can see that we are getting close to Vernazza, just around the corner. If you look very closely into the distance you can also see two of the other towns further down the coast.

This cat along the trail has it made, and knows it!

We're pretty high up now

Approaching Vernazza

As we made our final decent down into Vernazza we were greeted with some lively music!

After such a long and arduous hike we were ready to refuel with some pizza and plenty of water. We also took a little time to rest our aching legs and take in the local scenery before heading on to Corniglia.

Leaving Vernazza

Ashley & Jeremy waiting for slow Lorax

Eventually we headed back to the trails to make our way to the next town in the Cinque Terre chain, Corniglia. The section of trails between Vernazza and Corniglia was just as steep, but offered many new and interesting views of the surrounding terrain.

Pretty flowers with Corniglia off in the distance

Approaching....

CORNIGLIA!

Corniglia is situated on a high out-cropping of cliffs that juts out into the Ligurian Sea (as you can see from the pictures above). Walking around within the city requires climbing up steep and narrow passageways versus the wide and smooth streets of Vernazza, which is situated on a much flatter portion of coastline and closer to sea-level.

When we got to Corniglia we learned that the trail connecting to the next city, Manarola, had been washed out by mudslides earlier in the year, so if we wanted to continue on we would have to take the train. It was starting to get dark and we were pretty exhausted, so we decided to start heading back to our home in Levanto instead. Before we left Corniglia, we of course stopped to get our daily dose of gelato and then stopped in a local grocery to get some fruit for breakfast the next morning. Thank goodness we stopped at this store!!! Everything looked really tasty, so we decided to get something to make dinner as well. We thought we had picked out some thin pizza crusts, but when we got to the counter the lovely store owner explained that it was actually a local traditional "peasant" pasta that was unique to this region of Italy - Testaroli. It comes as a large thin crepe-like, sponge dough that is traditionally cut into strips and then triangles before being cooked in boiling water (per the lovely grocery store owner) and then served with fresh pesto. Of course we had to try cooking this traditional meal ourselves, so we bought all the supplies the store owner suggested and headed back to our home in Levanto via train. (Like we were gonna hike all the way back with giant grocery bags?!? LOL!)

Heading down to the train station at the bottom of the cliffs surrounding Corniglia.

Preparing the testaroli was incredibly easy. We paired it with some delicious local wine, prosciutto, cheese, and fresh tomatoes. Hands-down one of the BEST meals we had during our time in Italy - local and homemade! Not to mention a well deserved meal after a long day of hiking.