The Cinque Terre are five villages which perch on the sea edge beneath impossibly vertiginous hills. Until recently it was not possible to reach them, except by footpath, and the communities earned their living from fishing and growing the steepest vines you will ever see. It doesn’t hurt their current tourist industry that they are extremely pretty. In 1997 they were made UNESCO World Heritage sites.

There is now a railway, mostly one long tunnel, which links the Cinque Terre and Sarah and I got a free minibus from our campsite to our local railway station. Mabel and Melek got their first ever train journey and reacted like seasoned pros.

The Cinque Terre Express!!

Our initial stop was Monterosso. This is the first of the five hamlets from the north and it was from here that we hoped to start our walk to the next two, knowing already that the rest of the footpath was impassable.

In trying to find the start of the footpath we were told by a policeman that he thought all of the coastal path was closed at the moment due to recent bad weather. We checked with the Tourist Information and they confirmed that this was the case. Our primary reason for visiting the Cinque Terre had therefore immediately disappeared.

The information office suggested we could, if we wanted, try one of the inland walks, which was still open. They said it would be well marked and indicated the start point. Sarah and I therefore started off inland up a small valley. The start of the walk was easy enough, but as we progressed it not only became steeper but at each junction of the path there was nothing to indicate which was the correct way. After climbing for over half and hour, not knowing whether we were on the right track, we eventually reached a section where the path was only about 9 inches wide with a rock face on one side and a 30 to 50 metre drop on the other. We decided that with the dogs in tow and being unsure of our location we would turn back and explore the rest of the Cinque Terre by train.

The start of the footpath

We next travelled to one of the two prettiest villages, Vernazza. Pastel coloured houses tumble down the steep hillside to a tiny harbour. The sea was running high, left over from yesterday’s bad weather, and so the small fishing boats were all out of the water.

Vernazza Fishing Boats

Sarah and I climbed above the village to get a good view of the whole scene, which along with Manarola is certainly the most beautiful fishing village I have ever seen. Luckily the weather had been kind to us and we were able to picnic in the sun looking down on this picturesque vista.

Venazza

After lunch we caught the train to the equally captivating Manarolo. Slightly smaller than Vernazza, it can still match it’s big neighbour for beauty. Again we were able to climb above the village and watch huge breakers slam over the harbour wall. There would be no fishing today.

Manarola

On the walk back to the station I bought some locally produced pesto which will form the basis of our dinner tonight. The campsite responded quickly to our request to be picked up from the local station and we were back in Basil by 4.30 pm.

The laundry has turned out to be a saga. Yesterday Sarah tried washing our clothes twice, only to find on both occasions that the load would not spin out. This morning the campsite manager came to take a look and confirmed that the only washing machine is broken, so we are stuck with a large bag of soaking wet, part washed laundry, which we will have to try to sort out somewhere in the next few days.