Levanto and Cinque (Tre) Terre

22 Jun

No riding today, we took a train into the first of the Cinque Terre (5 Lands) Monterosso. Suddenly we were in a busy tourist area the second we stepped off the train. It reminded us of Venice and Rome with many Americans, Japanese and Chinese. After a short look around the town we found the trail that takes you to the 2nd village of Vernazza. The trail is lovely with many steps to climb through the forest and some vineyards and orchards also. We enjoyed this very much. The trail was somewhat busy, not bad though, 3 kms long and took us about 90 minutes. The view of the villages from the trail was spectacular. The highlight of the area is seeing the villages from the trails or from the water. The actual villages, once you’re in them, are typical of many Italian villages we have visited with many eateries and shops, not so interesting. Vernazza also had a castle to climb up to give us a good vista.

After a nice lunch in the main piazza we took the train to the last village Riomaggiore and explored there with plans to take a boat back to Levanto to see the area from the water but unfortunately the water was rough so the ferry was not operating. So the train was our only option.

We chose only to go to 3 villages as it seemed enough for us, too many people!