Cinque Terre

 I am including specifics of travel to help others trying to make one-day visits to Cinque Terre from a cruise ship anchoring and tendering at La Spezia. It may not be so interesting to our families and friends!

On the northwest coast of Italy, east of Genoa in the Ligurian region, is the picturesque and popular area known as the Cinque Terre, The Five Lands. La Spezia is a lovely town on its own but for us it was the gateway to the Cinque Terre. These five villages hang on the cliffs, connected by an ancient footpath. Much to our delight we were able to travel to all five villages and return to the ship well before the last tender, which was scheduled for 4:30 pm. At first it looked as if it would not be possible to do it on our own at all, but it turned out that the information on the Internet was not quite accurate – surprise! Nevertheless, I am putting this information on the Internet, but if you plan to use these details, be sure to check the train schedules to be certain when trains will operate during your visit.

We were off the ship on Tender 1 and asked the way to walk to the train station. There we were able to get a complete train schedule, train tickets valid for 6 hours of on and off in villages (11.80 Euros for both of us roundtrip) and a ticket for the park so we would be able to walk between the villages (5 Euros for two people.) We had only a short wait to get on the 10:01 train from La Spezia. We arrived a very quick seven minutes later in Riomaggiore, the first of the villages heading west.  This was the place we made our only bad move. We missed the signs that pointed the way to Via dell’Amore so we walked a little bit out of our way before we realized our mistake and retraced our steps back to the Station. From there we followed the signs. We walked the Via dell’Amore, Lovers’ Lane about 20 minutes to Manarola. Back on another train at 11:23 for a four minute ride to Corniglia, the only village that is not seaside. There was a little bus waiting for people who wanted to ride rather than walk the 600 steps up the cliff. We hadn’t known it, but the bus fare was included in the park ticket we purchased to walk between the villages. We rode. Corniglia was also very old with narrow cobblestone streets and houses perched on cliffs. Back on the little bus to the station to board the 12:15 train for a five minute ride to Vernazza.  We spent more than an hour in Vernazza, enjoying the busy little streets, the very best foccacia, and just people watching. There were restaurants there that had pizza and lovely looking seafood for anyone interested in eating there. The train left Vernazza at 1:38 for the four-minute ride to Monterosso, the last of the five villages, where we spent about 40 minutes. Once in Monterosso, walk out of the station to the street facing the beach and turn to the left. Walk along the beach until you can see the tunnel and walk through it. This will take you to the old section and many shops and restaurants.

I follow a healthy vegan diet except when there is tiramisu. The gelateria at the beach in Monterosso had tiramisu gelati that tasted exactly like tiramisu. I ate about half of one scoop and shared the rest with you know who.

For the return trip, we boarded the 2:44 express, which stopped only at Riomaggiore, and arrived at the station in La Spezia at 3 pm. The walk back to the ship took us about 40 minutes, but we walked slowly just soaking up the perfect weather and a perfect visit to a UNESCO World Heritage Site.