It is a long train ride from Bologna to Cinque Terre, 4 ½ hours. Now that doesn’t sound like very long, but when you don’t know which stop is yours, you must pay attention to every stop and it does become tiring. But finally you arrive and it is worth the wait.
Italy has more world heritage sites than any other country and Cinque Terre (5 grounds or places) is well deserving of this classification. A national park which incorporates the area along the coast preserves much of the area. Just to be outside, see the sunshine and not have to stay in crowds was refreshing and so far for Criss, this area is the most enjoyable.
Arriving late afternoon in Manarola, the second of the five villages, we still had time to check into the bed and breakfast and explore our little town. After all the sitting it felt good to move. We walked down to the sea, around the public park on a point overlooking the sea and then through an old cemetery. After checking the local restaurant menus, we decided to take advantage of our kitchen and cook dinner in the room and plan the next days hike.
The plan for our hike was to skip part of the trail between the last two villages, which is reported to have lots of elevation change and little scenery, and just hike from our village up to the fourth village. At the fourth village we would catch the train back to our village. After 2 ½ hours of dead ends and closed trails, we headed to the park office which is located at the train station on the trail to the first village. There we learned the segment of the trail between our village and the next was closed due to heavy rains earlier in the week and you had to take the train around that section.
We opted to walk to the first village, which ended up taking only 20 minutes and catching the train to the fourth village. We would grab lunch there, hike back to the third village and take the train back to our village. At 2:00, we found ourselves on the trail with a sack lunch, hungry and tired and just beginning. But the views were great, the sun was warm and the sea breeze refreshing. After a short break for lunch on the trail, we wandered off into the sunset, no longer hungry, but still tired and only a few kilometers to go.
