Cinque Terre

On our way to Cinque Terre we had a bonus stop at Pisa to get the obligatory photo of holding up (or in Ewen's case pushing down) the tower. I was surprised that the tower was so obviously leaning over, especially because our guide told us it is only on a 4% lean (or something like that i cant remember exactly). that doesn't sound like much of a lean but apparently the top of the tower is 3.9m from where it would be if the tower was straight. We took our photos and had some brekkie at a cafe over looking the tower which was nice. Then it was back on the bus and a few hours later we arrived in La Spezia.
From here we caught a train to Riomaggiore which is the first town of the Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre means five towns and is famous for the walk you can do that connects each of the towns. Our hostel turned out to be a house where we had a room and ensuite to ourselves, the walk up was a bit difficult with lots of steps and steep roads but it was definitely worth it, our house was on top of the cliff over looking the ocean and all the olive groves. we spent our first afternoon having a look around the shops and checking out the beach.

this is the view from the house we stayed in

The town of Riomaggiore

A very creepy toy baby in a shop

The waterfront in Riomaggiore

The very crowded beach
Our "sandcastle" competetion

the next morning (well at about 12pm) we set off to do the first couple of walks. the first one was really easy, took about 20 minutes and was nice and flat the whole way. you walk through the lovers lane section that is decorated with graffiti and lots of padlocks which was interesting. at the first town we came to, Manarola, we had some lunch and did a bit of exploring before walking to the next town.
This walk was slightly more difficult with a few steep inclines. The entire walk was along the edge of a cliff overlooking the beach so the views were spectacular. we stopped for a little while to watch a boy trying to overcome his fear of jumping from a large rock into the ocean, his sister had already done it and was in the ocean yelling for him to jump in. i think once he realised he had a bit of an audience he just did it, it wasn't until we got around the corner and turned to look back that we realised how high the rock was, it was quite an impressive jump! as you got closer to the town of Corniglia you passed a long stretch of abandoned portable buildings. it was a bit weird and looked a little like an old prison camp (a prison camp with great views). once you get to the base of the town you have the option of catching a bus (we didn't know this at the time) or climbing the 382 steps to the top of the town. we took the steps and while it was hard work we got to reward ourselves with gelati once we made it to the town. we spent a bit of time exploring the shops and went up to a look out before having one final cone of gelati and then getting the train back to Riomaggiore.

A very rickety bridge

Ewen appreciating the view

Sunset on our walk back to our house

The next day we set out to do another walk, this time we got the train to Corniglia to start we left off yesterday, after climbing the 382 steps yet again we got some delicious lemon gelati (that is pretty much all we eat these days) and then set off on the walk to Vernazza. this walk was much more difficult than the two walks we did the previous day. it took us about two hours and it was pretty much two hours of uphill, downhill, uphill, downhill. the walk was very pretty but this was hard to appreciate when you had sweat pouring into your eye balls. when we finally arrived (we were starting to think we had somehow missed the town and had started the fourth walk without realising it) we got some much needed water (we forgot to take any with us on the walk) and sat down for a rest. we had a look around the town and then went and got some lunch at a restaurant on the waterfront.
After some more window shopping and some more gelati we got the train back to Riomaggiore deciding to leave the last town until the following day because i had more blisters and Ewen was having trouble with his knee. We got take away pizza and had our dinner back at our house over looking the ocean.
Our last day in Cinque Terre we got the train to Monterosso (yep we wussed out of the final walk) and spent a few hours looking around and having lunch. originally we were going to take our bathers but it was pretty overcast when we left so we changed our minds, but as soon as we got there the sun came out and it was hot! the water looked so inviting but we had to settle for gelati instead of a swim. I'm pretty sure i will turn into gelati one of these days after eating it every single day!!!!
Our final night in Cinque Terre we got take away pizza again (i know we are little fatties) and packed up ready to leave the next morning.