From five sleepy Italian fishing villages to one of the most famous coastal landscapes in the world – the Cinque Terre’s Riveria has been on my mind since last four years. It still looks every bit as gorgeous as I had just imagined. It’s now a National Park and UNESCO World Heritage Site. Looking at those gorgeous pictures I posted on Instagram and the stories I kept sharing, I got lot of questions about What, How and When for this place, and this is the reason I am jotting down the beginner's guide to Cinque Terre, Rivera.
WHERE IS CINQUE TERRE?
Italian Riveira coastline is made up of five little villages up in the north Italy– the ‘Five Lands means Cinque Terre’ in Italian. Running from north to south the villages are Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore. The Cinque Terre is located just south of Genoa in north-west Italy, in the province of Liguria.
Accessible airports: Genoa, Pisa, Rome, Florence and Nice.
Accessible train runs through the base of the village called as "La Spezia" from all the parts of Italy (From Milan, Genoa, Nice, Rome, Florence, Pisa).
WHY CINQUE TERRE?
1. Colourful pastel five fishing towns/villages.
2. Grapes, Olives, Veggies vegetations on the rugged, steep landscape right up to the cliffs that overlook the Mediterranean Sea, that means your travel staircase to heaven ;)
3. And my personal favourite and the only reason to go to Cinque Terre: Hiking "The Blue Trail" - 12 km covering by foot; connecting all the five villages.
North to South; The Itinerary that we did!!! - Our base being La Spezia
1st Village: Monterosso al Mare
2nd Village: Vernazza
3rd Village: Cornigilia
4th Village: Manorala
5th Village:Riomaggiore
La Spezia to Monterroso by Cinque Terre Express Train (duration 22 mins).
Hike Monterosso - Vernazza - 4 KM Hike Vernazza - Cornigilia - 4 KM
Hike Cornigilia - Manorala - 3 KM (We took the longer one, 7 km through 382 stairs, as the 3 km has been temporarily closed)
Hike Manorala - Riomaggiore - 1 KM
Riomaggiore to La Spezia by Cinque Terre Express Train (duration 5 mins).
In a way total of 16 km in a day with enough breaks in all the villages.
If you are tired, you can stop any of the above the village, and take the train back to your destination.
HOW TO TRAVEL WITHIN CINQUE TERRE?
Cinque Terre can be covered in two ways:
1. By Foot (16 km blue trail). If you can't complete 16 km, you can anytime stop at one village and take the train back or forth. Easily doable with marked arrows; and you won't be alone. You will meet other fellow travelers too; so if you are thinking of doing solo; go for it.
2. Hop on/off on the Cinque Terre Express Train (Total duration between villages: 20 mins; all villages are one after another)
3. Individual boat tours.
4. By Car NO NO NO.
For Option 1, It's mandatory to purchase Cinque Terre Pass, as the five villages is the National Park property in Liguria and is also a UNESCO heritage site. The Pass we had purchased was Valid for one day, 16 EURO per person, which included unlimited trains from La Spezia - Monterosso- Vernazza - Cornigilia - Manorala - Riomaggiore + includes the entrance fee for the hiking entrance to all the five villages.
For Option 2: If you don't want to hike, there is option of buying just the train card, called as TRENO Cinque Terre which is valid for one day, per person 7 Euro. It's advisable to go for this one, compare to buying individual tickets between all the five stations which cost 3 EURO. Yes, it's that freaking expensive.
For Option 3: We were not much keen on it, so don't have much information. But there are individual boat tours which runs from one village to another.
For Option 4: It's absolutely not advisable. The roads are limited to only three villages. Or you will have to park your car in La Spezia and start the journey. It's suggested that you travel Italy especially country side; but absolutely not the coastal regions which have very narrow roads over looking curved cliffs.
Advice**** Hiking can be done in both the direction. The most common and popular is from Riomaggiore to Monterosso. However we wanted to do the other way. So we took the first train from La Spezia at 07:00 am and reached Monterosso and started our hike towards Riomaggiore. Why: We knew there would be less crowd if we opted for this one. And also it's the difficult hiking stretch, we thought of finishing this early and the most beautiful town Vernazza out of all five would be much near to us if we started North to South.
HOW MANY DAYS REQUIRE?
Ideally you’d want to spend three or four days in the Cinque Terre to do it justice. That’d give you enough time to explore each of the villages. The villages have a different atmosphere at different times of day, so that’d give you time to decide on your favourite so you can go back for sunset or dinner. How about that :). And if you have got more time you could travel further to neighbouring town of Portovenere, Levanto or La Spezia.
BEST TIME TO VISIT CINQUE TEREE?
Personally Europe has always been my favourite for June & July month. The pictures are taken in the month of July.
WHERE SHOULD I STAY?
If you are traveling on budget, the base can be set up in La Spezia, the nearest town from these five villages, like we did (It's 5 mins by train from the Riomaggiore village)
If you got good budget on accommodation, you can select any of these 5 villages for your stay. All five villages are connected through each other by train and also connected to La Spezia. P.s There aren't many hotels in these five villages, you will have to book either apartments through booking.com or book it through AirBnB.
INFORMATION ON 5 VILLAGES:
Monterosso al Mare is the largest town, made up of an Old Town, New Town, rocky beaches and long seaside boardwalk. Monterosso offers the most accommodation and has a resort vibe, so most visitors to Cinque Terre tend to stay here.
Vernazza is my personal favorite & everyone's favourite. There’s one main street leading from the train station to the harbour. The perfect Piazza ambience overlooking the church which is built on the water with a gorgeous waterfront. Best place to have the open shower.
Jijo says he indeed had second best open shower till date; Kerala home town "Well" open shower being the first :P
Corniglia is built high above the ocean on steep cliffs. Don’t stay here if you have excessive luggage, as the train station arrives at the foot of the town’s entrance so you’ll need to climb 365 steep steps to reach the town center. (BE CAREFUL)
Manarola is a romantic, colourful town with a small harbor popular for swims and a large rock for daredevils to jump off of. And I kept staring those bunch of adventurous people who kept jumping those high cliffs. How do even they do it? Phewwww...It's worth the experience to even watch them.
Riomaggiore has one main street, a harbor, a distinctive rocky beach and half a dozen restaurants. It’s the southernmost village and closest to the main city of La Spezia. Because it;s the first town from the La Spezia, with the most accessible way, it has all the crowd. Extremely over crowded town.
