10 minutes into arriving here, it was my favourite place by far!! The cinque terre is so so so so amazing. It's even better in real life than it is in the photos. It's so small and cute and simple in riomaggiore but it's so beautiful.
We stopped off in Pisa on our way to the Cinque Terre, and took our standard daggy tourist shots, and your not so standard tourist shots - thankyou Brendan. The leaning tower is so much smaller than I thought it would be, but it has building swag. We smashed down some Maccas for breaky which was awesome because its the first meal we've had in the past two weeks that hasn't been pizza or pasta. I had an omelette folded up in a bagel. The best.
We reached Riomaggiore around 1:00 and surprisingly found our hotel really easily, which didn't open until 2. So, we just sat on the street for about an hour until the little Italian man came along with his swagger. He took us down the street and around the corner to our room which was weird, but the room was amazing. We were up three flights of stairs that were as steep as balls. I measured them along my calf, and they were more than half way between my foot and knee. So that was the best to carry our bags up, but so worth it. We had our first fridge which was nice, and our own bathroom and the room itself was huge, and over looked Riomaggiore and the ocean. As sweet as the room was, we dumped our bags and went to explore. We saw everyone with a cone that had fish and chips in it and we were like let's get on that. The calamari that came with it was good, but we kind of assumed it would be fish and chips like in Australia haha, but we learnt fish and chips in Riomaggiore was a couple of chips and a handful of small tiny fish staring deep into your soul. I couldn't eat them because of their judgmental eyes, Brendan on the other hand had no issue. I like to think that if one day it were in reverse and a giant fish put me in a cone they would spare my life because I look into their soul, but Brendan would be gone. Sorry Brendy.
Anyway, we strutted around Riomaggiore for a little bit and then went down to the beach area, which is basically a whole bunch of rocks. I got these super cool hot pink beach shoes to wear and the club could not even handle me, if I had my inhaler on me at the time the world would've exploded. You're welcome world. The water was so nice and cold and as soon as you were off the rocks it was about two Brendan's deep (lol), so I just hung about on the rocks in my super cool hot pink beach shoes and a couple of Belgian chicks started chatting to me. It was totally the shoes. After we almost got run over by a boat we explored around the corner a little more and were like whaaatt! A beach was here all along!! Except it had pebbles instead if sand and they were slippery and hurt a lot to walk on - if you didn't have super cool hot pink beach shoes that is.
The next day we attempted to hike between the towns. The trail between Riomaggiore and the second town, Manarola, was closed because some railing had broken. That trail is the easiest of all the trails and only takes 25 minutes. Instead we had to wait an hour and a half for a train. We had a look around Manarola and then decided to hike between Manarola and the third town, Corniglia. The direct path between the two was also closed, however that trail that takes you up through another small village was open and we unknowingly took this route. We turned what would've been 2km into 4.5km, and there were so many steps, we got super shredded. Shredded and sunburnt. The hike had amazing views though and took us up through grape vines and olive trees.
When we got into the small town connecting Manarola and Corniglia we prematurely high fived at the top of the stairs thinking we had made it to Corniglia. The air smelt like balsamic vinegar and fresh herbs it made us so hungry. There was a little nonna swagging down the street who bounjournoed us which was nice.
Upon actually making it to Corniglia this time, we high fived again and then mission food commenced. We went into a small restaurant which had only pasta. We almost bailed because we were going to get something different and get pizza, but we decided to stay as our busabout guide had told us that the pesto pasta is meant to be the best in the cinque terre, along with focaccia. Brendy ordered pesto gnocchi and I had some form of pasta in a nut sauce and we shared the two. Best pasta I've had in my life. Omg. Then we walked a few doors down and had focaccia. Which was also amazing.
We caught the train the Vernazza and had some gelati and Brendan had a kebab. We had a small walk around but we were wrecked from the hike so we sat and waited for the train to last of the towns, Monterosso. We sat in the tunnel and while we were waiting another train passed through the station. In Australia they slow down, so we weren't expecting the train to blast through at full speed. I thought I was going to die for about 5 seconds and spent the rest of the time swearing at the train until it left. The wind was insane.
We had a quick look around Monterosso, and then headed back to Riomaggiore. We were so wrecked from the hike that we didn't get to explore the towns properly, or attempt the other couple of hikes. I wish we had an extra day in the cinque terre, or if I had known, I would've caught the trains to each town and explored the towns properly, but it's just an excuse to go back. ☺
On the morning we had to leave, we did some souvenir shopping before we checked out of our room. Hooray! ☺ And now it's onward to Nice!!