Cinque Terre Monday 18th May

Riomaggiore

The fishing boats up the main street of Riomaggiore

Riomaggiore

Riomaggiore

Manarola from the ferry

Vernazza

Vernazza

Monterosso

Our ferry and its wheeled gang plank... a bit ricketty at times

There may be five villages in the Cinque Terre, but we knew we had no chance of visiting them all as soon as we hopped on the ferry bound for Riomaggiore at around 10am.  The ferry was absolutely packed.   Most guidebooks tell you to not even try to visit all five villages in one day, so we were satisfied with a flying visit to three:  Riomaggiore, Vernazza and Monterosso.

Corniglia was off the table straight away because it can't be accessed from the sea and we opted to miss Manarola because the coast walk, the Via D'Amor between it and Riomaggiore had been closed due to rock slides.

The first village, Riomaggiore, looked amazing from the sea.  The first glimpses from the water were stunning and once off the ferry we could see the colourful fishing boats literally parked up the main street after the night's fishing.  Anchovies are fished in these waters and are served with lemon juice.

We went onto Vernazza after an hour or so.  Vernazza is beautiful in its own right, having its own sheltered harbour and beach and two towers overlooking the port entrance.

There is a two hour break in the ferry service over lunch time so we settled into the Blue Marlin Restaurant in Vernazza for a quiet beer and some lunch.
I had a bowl of Trofie (a short pasta) with pesto sauce and  Vaughan chose a filled roll and took advantage of the free wi fi.   The cafe seems to be quite an art hangout.  The walls were covered with modern art posters, Italian folk music played and bookshelves on the walls were full of Italian literature.  It was no hardship to spend an hour in there out of the midday sun.

My only gripe about the whole day happened here in Vernazza.  A castle lookout point is advertised at the foot of a gazillion steps - and it wasn't until I reached the top that I learned there is an entry charge.  I was only carrying my camera at this stage, having divested myself of my backpack (and hence, my wallet) and I was seriously unimpressed by their failure to disclose the fee at the start - and returned to the bottom without a photo, and feeling most put out.

I cheered up somewhat in Monterosso after some very welcome gelati.  Then, when it was time to leave at around four, we managed to fluke our way onto the only express ferry running, which returned us to our base in about half the time AND we were lucky enough to see a dolphin at play between Riomaggiore and Portovenere.

I'll leave this entry with some photos of arguably the prettiest collection of villages anywhere.