Cinque Terre

We got on our first train pretty easily, just a small misunderstanding regarding seat numbers but nothing we couldn't cope with. Hopped off at La Spezia to catch our train to Riogamorrie, had to go to the info desk as our second tickets had no info printed on them, after a lengthy wait she pointed us outside and told us the train at the station was ours and it would depart in 4 minutes. Ok, no problem there. Raced to train expecting to get on easily like the last one. Noooo such luck. The first carriage we tried was full to bursting, as was the second, and the third. By this stage I had pretty mush resigned myself to missing that train, it was due to leave any second and we simply could not squeeze ourselves on. Fortunately Willy doesn't give in as easily as I, he managed to find a slightly less bursting carriage and we were able to jam our luggage and sweaty, gross selves inside it just as the doors closed. Holy crap. I was seriously starting to wonder if we should have just done a tour. 

We hopped off the train in Riomaggiore, crossing our fingers that it was indeed the one we were looking for. Taking our fates in our hand we headed off in hopes of finding accomodation. We got halfway up the hill before we figured out that we'd done it wrong. It was thirty odd degrees and there was no sign of life let alone accomodation  of any flavour. We retraced our steps down the hill to the luggage check building. We checked in our bags with a lady who spoke as much English as we did Italian when a man came in, we asked him if he knew of any hotels we could stay at. Well! He happily said he did, and rang someone on his little flip top phone. He says to us, there's a man coming to meet you, if you like his room, you can stay... Ok?! 

Two doors up the street he hands us over to a very nice Italian man who leads us into an apartment building and up to the second floor where he leads us into a spotless, homely, apartment, then into a spotless, large bedroom. I ask him how much, he says thirty-five euro each, done! He gives us a couple of beach towels and sends us on our merry way.

The first two trails in the Cinque Terre walk are closed, so we catch the train to Vernanza, where we grab some lunch and have a quick swim. We then commence the first of the open walking trails. Oh my goodness, I never knew I was so unfit! I was out of breath after the first of the major climbs, which had me questioning some of my recent life choices. We kept going however - can't say we're quitters, and after a lot of photo opp's, plus ALOT of steps, we made it to Monterosso. By this stage we didn't feel like doing much, so we hired (I know, hiring a spot on the beach, what is this?!) an umbrella and two sun lounges where we stayed for the rest of the day.

Following our return to Riomaggiore we headed through the tunnel in search of dinner. We stumbled across a great little spot that was bursting at the seams - we got the last table. I had salmon linguine and Willy had tuna pasta, both were simple and delicious, we followed them up with profiteroles and tiramisu - Willy's first apparently. I love this place. We decide to stay another night.

We sleep in which is lovely, then feast on an incredibly sweet breakfast that our host had left us before heading down to the boat ramp in search of kayaks to hire. We find a tandem and opt to hire it for a full day (otherwise the maximum is three hours and neither of us has a watch), we head back up the hill in search of supplies and eventually paddle off around 10:30.

We paddle South first, and pass several very rocky bays before pulling up at our first major stop. We choose it because despite the rocks, it's the closest thing we've seen to a beach since Monterosso. It's really difficult to walk in the water due to the rocky bottom and during the process of pulling the boat out I slip/trip several times. Neither of us break an ankle though and while there are several yachts and motor boats sharing the bay with us we are the only ones on the beach! Bit of a different story to the previous day. We hang out in our bay, swimming, snorkelling, sunbathing and eating our lunch (and reading your book if you're Willy) until the sky let loose a barrage of big, fat, rain drops. Sadly we said goodbye to our beautiful wee shelf in the Rock and clumsily relaunched our kayak. We had been warned that there was a storm due to come in and we didn't want to get caught that far away if it chose to follow the rain. It didn't follow the rain, and by the time we got back to Riomaggiore it was clear and hot once more. So hot. We chose to paddle North this time and again paddled a fairly long way until we found another wee bay that we were able to pull the kayak out at. It wasn't as good as our first one but we stayed there until my sunburn got too bad and then bailed out back to town.

It was after 5pm by the time we got back so we cleaned up and went for a drink (or two) at the most amazing little wine bar nestled into the side of the cliff. It was pretty out of this world. We had an enormous cheese platter while drinking our wine over looking the Italian coast. It's out of this world.

Cinque Terre is by far my favourite place at this stage.