There must have been a number of people who had missed their connection in Milan just like us. Blair and I stood in the vestibule and I was standing halfway into the bathroom which wasn’t bad until the man behind me, who I was crowding with the backpack on my back, decided to close the bathroom door on me. So we had even less room. Eventually we found pullout seats in the aisle of the car in front of us and the rest of the way wasn’t so bad.The village of Vernazza was quiet as we made our way down the main and seemingly only street of this tiny town on the Italian Riviera. In the morning, the weather was sunny, but a bit on the chilly side if you weren’t in the sun: just about perfect for hiking. And there were very few people in the town yet the stores and the restaurants were still open. It appeared that we had picked a very good time to come to Cinque Terre.
These five towns are separated by 11 kilometers of seaside trails. Blair and I headed east toward Corniglia and Manorola before arriving at Riomaggiore, the last of the five villages. The area is completely undeveloped in between each town expect for the trail. The vastness of the sea to our right was overwhelming at times. The coastline juts out into the sea so that, ocassionally, all five towns can be seen from the trail at once. You really got the sense that you were indeed on the edge of a continent.
Cinque Terre has been a big tourist spot for decades. Once a sleepy set of villages that concentrated on agriculture, the area has capitalized on its location and natural beauty by investing in the tourist business. In fact, there are only about 250 acres of agriculture left. Near Manorola, we got a taste of the past as we looked upon the hill above us to see cardboard cutouts of people working the land. The sun felt wonderful and the wind held off as we made our way along the path through the early afternoon. Shady areas did not provide the same comfort.
We had lunch in Riomaggiore. We were a little underdressed for the occasion in our hiking gear. But the meal was perhaps the best one we had all weekend. I had a seafood pasta with mussels, baby clams, and gambas, and Blair savored a spinach gnocchi. The wait staff was friendly, especially the old man who was a little touchy feely, not as much with me as with Blair.We took the train back through Vernazza and to the final town on the west side, Monterosso. But we did not punch our tickets; and a ride that cost us less than two euros was about to cost us 50 euros more when the conductor looked at our tickets.
“You must”…then he gave a gesture showing the punching motion of a ticket. “Sempre!” Then he wrote “50 euros” on the back of the ticket and said “penalty” All I said was “okay” and then played dumb. Blair had realized when we sat down on the train that perhaps we needed to punch the tickets but had I tried to get off the train to do this before it left I am sure that I would have missed it. This was one of those times that I chose not to speak any Italian, hoping that the appearance of ignorance and the reputation that Americans travelers get of only being able to speak English would get this conductor off our backs. After he displayed complete frustration in our failure, he left us alone.
In Monterosso, we skipped rocks on the beach and I tried to convince Blair that the water was warm enough to swim in. She wasn’t buying it. We also found a café that sold “Monterosso pie” which had come highly recommended from a friend at TASIS. Blair and I both agreed that we enjoyed the coffee more than the pie and it gave us the kick we need to make the hour and a half hike back to Vernazza. 
Before leaving town, we sampled different flavored Limon cellos, which in one way was too bad because just up the trail there was a man that had set up a tent and was selling his own set of wines. All the previous taste tests had weighted me down and made me feel a bit woozy. I am sure I felt this more than Blair because I think I finished a few more taste tests than her. And it would get dark soon, so we had to pass the wine seller and keep walking. The sun was setting behind us and Blair and I couldn’t help but to stop and look at the colors of the sky and the different cloud formations over the Mediterranean Sea. It got dark rather quickly after the sun went down but we kept moving swiftly until we arrived at a lookout spot where we could see the lights of Vernazza below us. We couldn’t get a terrific picture of the view we that we had discovered because of the darkness, but we found the next day that many of the postcards in the Vernazza shops show the exact same view that we saw overlooking the stunningly beautiful town at night.
After arriving back in Vernazza, Blair and ate dinner near the water in a busy restaurant. We had hoped the crowd meant that the food was good. The best part of the meal was definitely the bottle of white wine which we savored over the course of the meal. The least favorite was the anchovies that somehow the waitress had convinced us were a good choice after she had told us that they were out of the cod appetizer. Blair and I talked a lot about our families and we would have stayed longer to chat had they not kicked us out of the restaurant at 10:30 because the staff supposedly had to catch the last train home which was earlier than usual because of a supposed strike.
The next day was again sunny and cold. Blair and I ate breakfast at a little café facing the beach before heading out for another hike. This time we headed up into the mountains. We passed through the vineyards and had great views of the sea. In one vineyard, we came across a not so happy dog that gave us a lot of trouble. We had to approach him and pass him and hope that he would not jump down from the rock wall above. He seemed perfectly ready to do so, even though his owner yelled to us from afar to keep going on ahead. Eventually, we snuck by the distressed animal and disappeared into the forest and the barking behind us subsided.
The trail was not well marked and at times we got lost in the forest and had to turn back to find the path. The fallen leaves covered much of the pathway and we had to brush our feet along under the leaves to make sure that we did not step into any holes. The trail curved around the gorge and afforded us a view of the vineyards that we had passed through on the other side. It started to get late and after what seemed like a lot of walking without any real sense of direction or purpose, we took the path pack to Vernazza. We sat down, as we had done for lunch, and ate peanut m+m's and clementines. We perched over on the side of the road with our feet dangling over a stone wall and looked out at the sea. We could see the different currents working against each other from this far up. The sun shown brightly and we could not peer down at the water without wearing our sunglasses.
We arrived back in Vernazza with enough time before our train left to be able head up the castle tower and get a view over the town. The sun was still bright in the late afternoon and we got another couple to take our picture at the top.
The train ride home went quickly and except for a mad dash to get kebab in Milan before catching our connection to Lugano, it was a much less adventurous trip than our journey to Vernazza on Friday. But that mad dash for kebab did include some running to catch the train on time which was a good way to end a very active weekend.
