5 Lands

Hey, hey, hey! Thanks for sticking it out…

I only have a minute but just thought I’d write a quick note to tell you that we had a fantastic time in Cinque Terre (Five Lands), Italy! There are five villages perched among the cliffs on Italy’s Northwestern side. They are about 12Km apart in total and for many years this coastal path was the only means of connection between the villages. Today there are still few cars, because accessing the towns by road remains difficult. The trails on the otherhand, have been fully discovered. I can’t imagine coming here during the summer. It must be loony toons! Since it’s still the off season though we managed to enjoy some very lovely hiking between the villages. It was absolutely spectacular! We first took the train into the third village, figuring that we could split the hike easily that way over two days. We started to become concerned about finding lodging though when we had to physically fight our way onto the train and then stand with our packs for the duration. Upon our arrival we headed to the shuttle bus stop only to find another crowd of people pushing and shoving for position. Corniglia is the name of the town and it is the village located at the highest point of the five. The train station was at sea level so no one wanted to make the trek on foot up to the village. Not wanting to fight another group though Jon and I instead opted to go up the 356 steps up to the village ourselves. Ummm…. it wasn’t exactly fun, especially with packs, but we made it and headed off to find whatever accommodations we could.

Here is where we really lucked out: Virtually everywhere was booked, but the first place we stopped I was able to speak enough of my Spanish/Italian hybrid language to have her agree to let us stay at her rental apartment for a night. We were so pleased that we wouldn’t have cared if it was a shoebox. We just wanted to get those fucking packs off by that point. When she opened the apartment doors though we were blown away! It was HUGE! Probably the size of our place in Chicago, with a kitchen, bedroom, living room and unobstructed view of the water! All for the price I paid for a Motel 6 next to a homeless park in Southern California!

Here’s the view of the sunset from our window:

After we threw down our stuff we got a quick bite to eat and then headed for the trail. It was not a trail like I had imagined- it was cleared, but cut right out of the mountain and had jagged rocks for the path. But it was absolutely beautiful! We hiked a big chunk of the trail heading North that day and then the next morning hiked the more traveled “Lover’s Walk” in the Southern portion. The Lover’s Walk part is the most famous and it was therefore much, much more crowded. It’s also a much easier, shorter hike on a paved path… It’s more like a stroll on a sidewalk that just happens to be on the edge of a mountain. There were full on tour buses pulling up and unloading people at the trailhead. I highly recommend going, but do not bother unless you are going in the low season! It was wonderful, and beautiful but it won’t hold the description of being “undiscovered” for much longer, if it even does anymore.