Our adventure at Cinque Terre

Why go to this lovely world heritage site in winter?  Why not? Actually, I would go again, at any time, and stay longer, and swim and walk....
 The dramatic cliff scape, the buildings are perched on top of each other going up the mountains and are such lovely colours - I wonder if they were always so colourful???

There were no ferries at this time of year  for us enjoy the dramatic views of  villages from the ocean, so we travelled by train to Le Spezia, the main port of the area, then changed to a local train. We first visited Monterosso –the furthest away and with a lovely long beach. Oh, the openness,the freedom, the fresh air and the quiet wave shushing after all those days of narrow smoke stinking streets!!  Bliss….   feeling of freedom...... This and another village got flooded out in 2011, apparently due to global warming, however all the locals got together and fixed everything so today, one would never know.    A quick look around the town at street level and on the train to the smaller village of Vernazza to watch a fishing dingy being hoisted up from the waters far below….  Travelling to Europe in Winter, is so cool - there are no crowds or queues.   However an Asian tour group joined us on the train and we wondered why they did not get off at Corniglia.  This was the only town that had a ‘Welcome to our Village’ sign  and a barking welcome dog - and we soon found out why – there was a switchback series of many stairs to the village high in the hills!  Nothing was open, being the time of year, but thankfully there was a bus service to deliver us to the station down below. Corniglia – visited!! We decided to  eat at Manorola, perched on the edge of the cliff and discovered that the Asian Tour group was dining at a very nice looking restaurant in the main street. As we had plenty of time  for the train before travelling to the next village we elected to settle in for a long lunch of local fare  -  a very good decision, we discovered.  At Cinque Terre one is expected to go walking, we knew, so we elected to do the shortest walk from Riomaggore. However a few minutes into the walk we discovered a very padlocked gate and a notice informing us that the walkway was closed due to slips…….

We then decided to walk up what we thought was the main street only to discover that this was a well  off residential area – odd!!  Back to the station to find an interesting wall lined tunnel  of art leading to the busy main street leading upwards……but we have done enough ups!  Now when is the train leaving to Le Spezia?????