Cinque Terre

Five towns.  Literally.  All along the coast.  Used to be fishing villages.  Not much fishing now. Tourism. But, super picturesque!

The located where they were because they were defendable.  The only real access for a long time was via the sea.  The railroad came through "only" 150 years ago. 

Trains, hiking and ferries!  What's not to like!

We started our day by boarding a train at Santa Margherita and going to Riomaggiore, the southern most town.

Finally!  The train portion of our trip!

Off at Riomaggiore.

The town is right on the edge of the sea.

We walked a trail called Via dell'Amore - route of love.  The path was installed between two adjacent towns to, um, increase genetic diversity in the local population.

The trail led to Manarola. 

We walked about Manarola a bit

 

The hills above the town are still terraced gardens.

When you're right against the sea, there's no place else to store your boat.

At this point, we had a choice.  One, was to take the train one stop north to Corniglia and then hike to Vernazza.  The other was to take a walk around the hill above Manarola and then ferry over to Vernazza.

I did the former.  Patti did the latter.  Our overall group was roughly split.

Manarola from above

The hikers boarded the train at Manarola

...then crammed into a shuttle bus to the top of the hill

Starting on the hike, we came across a monorail system used to farm the terraces

The hikers headed up the hill...

...While the ferry people set sail.

Ferry passing Corniglia

Sill going up.

We passed beneath the hilltop town of Volastra

Looking back at Corniglia

Corniglia and beyond, Manarola

Along the trail

Hikers arriving at Vernazza

We spent some time in Vernazza eating lunch and wandering around.  

Then we hopped on a ferry and headed for Monterossa, the northern most town.

On the ferry headed to Monterossa

Departing Vernazza

Looking back at Cinque Terre shoreline

At Monterossa, we really didn't have any time to look around, but headed straight for the train.

The "old part" of Monterossa

Heading to the train station - nice beach day!

Had time to catch a few freight trains passing through...

...before our train arrived.

We took the train down to La Spezia, then changed trains to Sazana, where we met Antonio and his bus.  From there, it was off to Florence and our "farewell" dinner.