A Few Days in Italy - Day 2

Riomaggiore

We wanted to catch the earliest train possible to get to the Cinque Terre at a decent time, so thought the 8:19 one would be fine.  Lucky for us, the hotel started the fabulous breakfast buffet at 7am and this enabled us to be fed and ready for the next step in our trip!  (note - order train tickets online and before the day of departure to get a better deal!  We didn't do that, but will certainly do that from now on.)

To get to the Cinque Terre is a two step process, a train to La Spezia. Then change there for the Cinque Terre Express.  On this particular day, we got off our first train and the next one was at the next platform, too easy!  The last time we did this, the trains were a few platforms apart so I think it was just luck this time.

Steep steps up to the door of
Ca' de Capun

There are two ways to get to the
Ca' de Capun, but this is the easiest!

Arrived at Manarola around 10am and wanted to drop our bags off at our guesthouse, the Ca' de Capun, booked through Booking.com.  I had contacted the owner, Franko, and he said it would be fine to do this.  When we arrived so early though, there were only cleaners there and one spoke no Italian and the other tried to help.  Once we explained what we wanted to do, they let us put our bags in our own room even though it was not yet ready!  And we got the best room EVER!  It was a living room and bedroom.  I just had a look at the photos on their site and the couch in the living room is a sleep sofa, so this room could have slept 4 quite comfortably!  And there was a double balcony with this!  Bliss!

More stairs to get to our room!

Entry hall, bathroom on the left, living room!

Other angle of living room,
balcony doors are closed

the bedroom 

Us on the balcony

The ferry going by Vernazza!

Our goal was to catch the Cinque Terre ferry as early as possible to get the best use out of an all day ticket.  The only hitch was they were not running this day!  The weather looked perfect to us, but the sea was too choppy for the ferries to deal with the open docking they need to do.  So we will try again tomorrow.

Vernazza

In the meantime, we made the best of it and bought a ticket for the Cinque Terre Express train to go between each village. This ticket expires at midnight and also permitted us to use the trails, if we so desired.  By the time we did go up the trail for the sunset at Vernazza, the checkpoints were closed so it didn't really matter!

I think this man spends every day on his boat
in Vernazza harbour. He was there the last time
we were too!  

He spends the day posing for people who take his photo!

I thought maybe he was fundraising
for a charity or something.  I
guess I have lived in Scotland too long,
That is something we would do here.

We had a super day heading out to Vernazza first, then back to Manarola to check into the guesthouse and change my shoes and get my knee brace on, it was just too sore to put it off any longer.  Meant to do it earlier, but dropping off our bags didn't go quite as easily as planned with the language barriers! I must admit, I was in agony though.  There is nothing easy when your knee is sore!

Vernazza

Lunch at the Pizzeria da Ercole in Vernazza

Vernazza

After this, we went to Riomaggiore. This is my favourite village view in the Cinque Terre.  But after spending so much time in Vernazza, I have decided that is my favourite village of all!

One reason that we visited this area the first time was to get sunset photos, but the trains stop running too early for us to get back to Pisa when we made this a day trip from there! What a great reason to stay two nights in Manarola so we could get sunset!

My low level view of sunset in Vernazza

We returned to Vernazza for the first night here.  I was unable to climb the hills for great views, so I just sat in front of a church, with a Aperol Spritz and enjoyed some very quiet time in the Cinque Terre.  I sat there quite a while until Alan arrived after going up really high for some wonderful sunset photos. I really hope I can do this the next time we are here.

As we headed through the tunnel to catch our train to Manarola, we were entertained by a talented clarinet player and also enjoyed watching a couple dance to his music.

I like to try local food and was intrigued by the thought of Trofie, sort of a wheat and potato pasta with a strange shape. Pesto is also very dominant here and so I ordered Trofie with Pesto for my dinner in Manarola.  I must say it was delicious, but the whole plate of Trofie was a bit overwhelming and, if there was a next time, I would like to split this with someone and share another entree at the same time.

Trofie

This was the view before I headed down to the harbour to watch the rest of sunset.  Such a beautiful part of the world.