CinqueTerre

We went by train to Vernazza and walked to the harbour and up to a lookout, up some other alleys and were tired even before we had started our hikes of the five lands. We did start it and what was suppose to be an hour and a half walk to Corneglia took us 2 hrs and we were not being too slack! It was quite torturous with ups and downs (though it would have been worse coming from the other direction). Mind you it was a very hot day, and the signs say not to walk in the middle of the day - we are Australian though!). We bought some cold water at a halfway point (good marketing !!!). Corneglia was very quaint and we had a gelati and some packed lunch and a lovely pastry. We then found out the next section of walking track was closed due to a landslide so we caught the train to Manerola. At Manarola we walked to the harbour and had a swim in the deep blue water floating around because of the high salt content of the Meditteranian. Some kids were jumping off a huge rock into the water. The next section of walk to Riomaggoire is called the 'walk of love' and was only 30min and mostly level . At Riomaggiore we bought a slice of pizza and caught the boat back to Monterosse .Seeing the towns from the water was special and Monterosse was a pleasnt surprise - we were originally going to give it the flick. It had a lovely harbour and esplanade with shops and trees along the beach. We sat watching some people fishing - Lyndie went for a swim but I rested on the sand (well little rocks!!) It was 7pm and the beach was in the shade a lovely time of night and we were in no hurry to go home but by the time we were ready the trains were delayed and we had to sit on the platform for 30 min (one of the trains was delayed 2 hrs 40!! Glad ours wasn't). We got home around 9pm bought some apricots for tea and had our cuppa and biccies.