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With all the walking I've been doing over the last couple of days and all the weight that must've literally fallen off me (by which I do, of course, mean figuratively before all you grammar heads start sending me postcards), I think I'll be ready to enter Mr Universe when I get back home. Stop sniggering at the back, I realise I made an innuendo. It's what people want, and if people insist on an innuendo or two, I will certainly bend over backwards to give them one... Good, I've been wanting to slip that one in for some time (Johnson, stop sniggering, see me after school). My god, I appear to be turning into Stephen Fry.
Ahum.
There are five towns in the Cinque Terre, as the more observant of you may have got from the name - the five lands. Now that the entire region has been designated a national park, it is necessary to buy a hiking pass from the train station in whichever town you are based in, allowing you to hike the trails between the towns for the day or, for an extra 3.50 at the time of writing, to hop on the trains between them should you find yourself miles away from base with no energy left. Most authorities on the subject will suggest that you start from Monterosso al Mere, the furthest of the Cinque Terre, and hike the blue path which connects the towns until you arrive back at Riomaggiore 5 hours later with blisters on your blisters. These people need their heads thoroughly examined.
Now don't get me wrong, the blue path is definitely the way to go and also has the advantage of allowing you to take a detour in each town along the way for a look around, a coffee, and the opportunity to hike the local trails should you so wish. It's just that I would have to recommend starting in Riomaggiore and working the blue trail in reverse, arriving in Monterosso al Mare at the end of your 5 hour hike. Why? Well, this way the hike starts off easy and gets harder rather than the other way around, so you can stop as soon as things get too tough without having missed out on too much. Also, if you are in any way scared of heights, you probably shouldn't be in the Cinque Terre in the first place, but if you're forcing yourself to confront your demons then you definitely don't want to start the hike from Monterosso al Mare.
The hike from Riomaggiore to the second of the five towns, Manarola, couldn't even really be considered a hike at all - so much so that it has been given the name "Via Dell'Amore" or the lovers lane. The path runs along the clifftop with gorgeous views, and there's even a bar set into the cliff face half way along with a grilled pavement outside where you can stand and look down through your feet at a massive drop. The entire route from Riomaggiore to Manarola is paved, and there are barriers the whole way - even a tunnel en route with windows to look out at the view from. Take a pushchair with you and let baby have a look at the view too - it's that easy to navigate. Every surface is covered with graffiti expressing someone's undying love for someone else (or the fact that two people had an argument here and one of them pushed the other off the cliff!) and rest stops (stone benches carved into the cliff) provide pit stops along the way should you need them, although they are usually occupied by lovers with their lips glued together for pretty much the whole day. The stone benches all bear plaques declaring their name - the first one you come to outside Riomaggiore is called Penelope. That's right, you can stop off en route to have a sit down on Penelope Pitstop! The best bit of Graffiti I saw all day, from someone who clearly missed the point entirely, was "Sophia loves Grandma".
Along the way, wire nets hang from the cliffs onto which hundreds of padlocks have been randomly attached - I assume the idea is that lovers attach a padlock to symbolise their connection and throw the key in the sea, although I'm not sure being padlocked together is the most romantic of metaphors. And just in case you forget for one moment that this is lovers lane, signs remind you at regular intervals with pictures of two stick figures sucking each others faces off. I'm such a romantic.
After looking around Manarola's labyrinthine streets, the next stage of the hike takes you to Corniglia. When I visited, this stage was closed for reasons that nobody was willing to discuss (so somebody fell off the cliff, the path fell into the sea, or they were carrying out essential routine maintenance due to the wrong type of leaves on the path and are sorry for the inconvenience, whichever you like better). This stage of the hike is, as far as I can tell, not much more strenuous than the first but does contain steep changes in elevation. It is also no longer paved, so this is a section strictly for hikers and not lovers, babies in prams or people with heart problems - it is also a 3km journey, where the previous stage was not much more than a kilometre, so allow yourself an hour. Where you do start to get a sense of things to come, though, it when the trail reaches the train station at Corniglia. Unlike the other towns of the Cinque Terre, the station is at the bottom of the cliff and the town is at the top, and you need to reach the town to continue your hike. This involves a climb of exactly 382 steps, arranged in a zig-zag pattern up the cliff. Cue much panting and wheezing for all but the fittest of the fit. There is no avoiding the steps - even with the trail between Manarola and Corniglia closed, the train still drops you at the bottom of the cliff, so don't say I didn't warn you.
From this point on, we get into serious hiking mode, so expect to leak a few buckets of sweat. If you are a man, don't wear a top. If you are a woman, also don't wear a top, but remember to let me know when you're going to be there!
The guide book warns you that the hike between Corniglia and Vernazza, the fourth of the five towns, will be the first real struggle. It wasn't kidding. In distance, we're only talking 4km, but to give you an idea what this trek will expect of you, over the entire course of the blue trail of which we have only touched the surface by the time we start this leg, the trail will rise a distance of 465 metres and fall a distance of 457. You'll feel like you've climbed a mountain. Luckily, there are several leafy glades along the way for a welcome break from the trail, and I had the foresight to buy a big bottle of water from Corniglia which I sorely wanted to pour over myself at several points. If I hadn't bought that bottle of water, you would probably be reading my obituary about now!
About Simon and Burfords Travels:
Simon Burford is a UK based travel writer. He will be re-publishing his travel blogs, chapters from his books and other miscellaneous rantings on these pages over the coming weeks and months, and the entry on this page may not necessarily reflect todays date.
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