Italy- Day 14 Cinque Terra

Our second day in Cinque Terra, we took the train to Corniglia, and picked up our hike where we left off the day before. Linda had told us about a church in Vernazza, that was right near the water, so that was our goal. The hike started with 300+ stairs. Here's a view from part way up:
We had heard that the hike between the last two towns of Cinque Terra were a lot more difficult than the first between the first three towns. Some of the girls had hiked the entire thing the day before and said that it wasn't so bad. They were lying. I think this was the hardest hike I've ever done in my life. Not, that I've hiked a whole lot, but this was pretty brutal. Beautiful, but brutal.

A shot from the trail. We kept going up. And up and up and up!

One of the few level parts of the trail.

Going down wasn't much better than going up.

The path was narrow, with a steep drop off to one side, for most of the trail. I think it took us almost two hours to get to Vernazza.

Fianlly we made it to the church. It was right by the rocks and the water. It was small, and simple and beautiful. I really loved this church, I think it might be one of my favorites. While I was sitting in the pews, contemplating, an honest to god crazy man came in and started yelling at all of us in Italian. I'm not sure what he said, but I'm pretty sure he called us fascists.

After that was swimming on the rocks outside the church for awhile and then back to the beach in Monterosso for more swimming and rock collecting.

Italy- Day 13 Cinque Terra

Cinque Terra is made up of five small towns along the coast. You can either take the train from town to town, or you can hike the Via dell' Amore, between the towns. We got up early and took the train to the first town and began the hike. He's me in my "geologist" get up:

The rocks along the walk were amazing. To one side were these huge, layered cliffs, that would fold you in like a womb.

The streets and trails were so steep. We actually hiked straight up these terraces a little ways, looking for an olive oil museum, which we didn't find. But the views were spectacular.


Manarola (I think)

I couldn't get over the color of the water.

We made it to Corniglia, which is about in the middle of the whole long hike, then hopped a train back to Monterosso, for an afternoon on the beach.