The morning began with a 2 hour train ride to La Spezia. Here, we were to took another train to the Cinque Terre.

Unfortunately, the train workers were on strike! (Not the first time we have encountered a strike on this trip… how unlucky of us!) We were almost stranded here, until we learnt of the ferry ride that could take us to the destination as well. We navigated our way (with much confusion) to the port, where we bought our one day ferry ticket (€23, trains would have been free as we had a railpass).

After almost 2 hours on the ferry (the train would have taken us 30 minutes), we arrived at our first destination at the Cinque Terre, Monterosso al Mare. Here, we had a quick lunch at a wood fire Pizzeria, as it was rather late already, before we embarked on our hike. Our plan was to hike from Monterosso al Mare, to the next five towns, in order, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and finally, finish at Riomaggiore. The whole hike is 9 km long, and it takes an estimated 5 hours to complete.

Regrettably, as the trains were on strike, we had to catch the last ferry out of the region, and hence did not have time to complete the whole 9km hike.

We did however, finish the hike between Monterosso al Mare and Vernazza, the most challenging segment of the whole hike, being 3 km long, and with lots of steps… never ending steps! The views were amazing, better than you would see in a postcard! It was a fresh change from the cities and museums, and we saw the green hills, the seas and the beautiful skies.

As we finally approached the town of Vernazza after 1.5 hours of hiking, we caught this classic view of hills, town and sea.

S-I-M-P-L-Y B-R-E-A-T-H-T-A-K-I-N-G!

After a short water break, and a quick walk around the streets of Vernazza, we contemplated doing a fast hike to the next town (2km away). Unfortunately, at this point Marcus was already too shagged to even hobble, let alone try to continue hiking!

We stayed at Vernazza, where we caught the last ferry out back to La Spezia, lamenting that because of the train ride, we did not get to see the full Cinque Terre. Instead we only saw “Due Terre”! What a waste!

Mediterranean Sea

Back in La Spezia, we bought ourselves more Pizzas (of course at this point, Marcus was reenergised!), and rode the regional train back to Florence where we would spend the night.