Manarola. August 27

This morning the daughter of the house, Chloe, welcomed us as we were on our way out into town, which is a pretty nice way to start the day. After getting some vague directions from our host we headed back up the slope in the direction of the restaurant where we had eaten last night. The slope is pretty steep and we were whinging a little about the climb in the heat. Little did we know...
So turns out, the regular strolling coastal path to the next town along, Corniglia, was blocked by a land slide and the detour rout was the most exhausting task we would overcome in our entire trip. So we started off with a meandering rubble path gradually climbing the hill in quite an off-road fashion. Then we got the steps. The steps took us about 3 attempts and many run ins with fellow hikers. Yep. Because these people were aware than the walk would actually be a proper up hill, cross-country hike. Dats cool, we’ll just go on with our summer dress’ and handbags.
So sweaty and exhausted we reached Volastra, where we had some rest time to look through the small town church, and then started off again, this time on some very precarious paths through the lovely Cinque Terre vineyards. After some ups and downs here we climbed up and down through a hillside forest and then eventually began the long walk down the quite unstable and rocky ‘path’ down.

Looking down to Manarola (near bottom right of coast is swimming hole from yesterday)

Corniglia

We made it Corniglia and decided that was probably enough hiking for the day.
In Corniglia we had a gelato break before having a stroll through the town and a look from the hillside lookout. It’s pretty beautiful there and if we weren’t so tired, we probably would have spent more time exploring. But we were hungry and had heard that the pizza in Vernazza was the best. So we took the train (after a very long descent to the station), and found the wood-fired pizza place our host had told us about.

After filling our bellies we headed out to the marina to have a squiz and for Elise to reminisce on that epic fall in 2009 which she’s still not sure her bum has recovered from yet. Pretty idealio scenery here, just saying.
We had a look inside the church by the marina and then headed back to Manarola on the train.

We got into our bathers and headed for the swimming hole at the end of the street. We had a pretty nice swim/paddle/float here and watched some brave souls jump from the top of a very big rock. Also, no jellyfish here so it was generally much more relaxing. After a while in the water, we sat out on the ramp in the sun.

For dinner we went to a place we had seen selling arancini and got one to share as well as a croquette. We took them down to the lookout and had a little picnic while the sun set. And then walked around the path a bit more to watch the sun set over Manarola, and on the other side of the cliff, over Corniglia.

Lots of Love,

A&E