My First Trip to Italy and Some Impressions Part 2

 I am back with another installment of my trip to Italy.  After looking over photos of my trip again, I decided to share Cinque Terre with you today. Cinque Terre is an amazing place and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, meaning that this location has been recognized for its outstanding universal value by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.  These sites are protected under an international treaty.  Big stuff and I can see why.  Cinque Terre (Five Lands) is a marvel, and I was so happy we were able to visit it.

We set out early, 8:00 am (extremely early for me, especially with the jet lag and all) for Cinque Terre by way of an escort van service.  It took at least three hours to get to Cinque Terre from Florence but it was an interesting ride, and we could sleep if we wanted.  Along the way we passed Carrara.  This is a town where Carrara marble is mined in the hillside.  The hills look like they are covered in snow but, really this is white Carrara marble exposed to the world.  It is a fascinating sight to see.

When we finally got close to Cinque Terre, we needed to navigate winding roads to meet up with our guide. Our first glimpse of the Five Lands was at this spot that overlooked our destination.  My grandson, Tommy, was included in this picture.  I didn't have the heart to cut him out :).  As you can see, it is a colorful and beautiful place.

We met our guide for the day at one of the villages at the base of the series of villages. However, because of the strong accent of our guide, Leeza, I am not exactly sure where we started. We soon got on the train that services the area.  The train is the best mode of transportation for getting around Cinque Terre.  Driving would have taken hours (because of the winding roads).  Whereas the train was only minutes. I can't remember how long exactly but the ride seemed very quick.

The first village we visited was Riomaggiore. Normally the ferry that provides transportation to the other villages would have gone out of this port but because we visited in April before the tourist season was in full swing, the ferry was not running that day.  The seas were rough also, another good reason the ferry was not in service.

This is the ferry area.  You can see that the ocean was rough.  The waves often came over the breakwater.

Oh, and one thing I forgot to mention, Cinque Terre sits along the Mediterranean Ocean.  I got to see the Mediterranean Ocean!  How cool is that?!  Perhaps, our visit to Cinque Terre will encourage my husband and me to take a Mediterranean cruise some day.

Next, we went to Vernazza, also by train. This is another coastal community with its own charm.

The towns of Cinque Terre are quite rustic.  That is the nature of Cinque Terre.

For me, the neatest thing in Vernazza was the Church of Santa Margheritte de Antiochia.  The view of the Mediterranean out of the windows was beautiful and mesmerizing. My thinking was that it would be hard to focus on the church service with that view.

Isn't it lovely?

At this point I would like to draw your attention to the terraced land of Cinque Terre.  Can you see it on the hill?

You can also see the terraced gardening in this photo, as well.  Our guide told us that if you laid the rows of the terraced gardens out in a linear way, the distance would be greater than the Great Wall of China.  Isn't that amazing?  The fact that they still farm the land in such conditions is also amazing.

You can see the tree line and more of the rough terrain here.

Our final destination village was Monterosso al Mare.  It is the largest of the coastal villages in Cinque Terre and at the highest in elevation. We traveled again by train.  To be honest, I was getting really hungry by then. I think it was 1:30 or 2:00 by the time we arrived, and we had eaten breakfast early that day.  Since we had dinner reservations that night, we told our guide a sandwich would be good for lunch.  I think that was a mistake because we passed an array of wonderful cliffside restaurants along the way and ended up at a tiny indoor cafe in town for lunch.  The people were really, really nice but, the lunch was just average.  I think we all would have liked the ambiance of the cliffside restaurant but, we didn't want to be rude, and she did provide the sandwich we had asked for after all :). 

Evidently Monterosso is a beach community in the summer and can get very, very crowded.  Being there in April, that was not the case.

I think by this time in the day, we were pretty tired.  We didn’t take as many photos here,

which is a shame.  Monterosso was laid out differently than the other two villages and had awesome views of the Mediterranean from higher vantage points. 

I did take this picture, however.  This is a Nazi lookout shelter used during WW11 while the Italians were still working with the Nazis.  I understand that changed at some point during the war, something our guide was happy to point out. The lookout shelter was an interesting part of history to see first hand.  Trying to imagine Nazi soldiers inhabiting Cinque Terre and what that might have meant for the residents there was a bit mind blowing  

I believe this picture was taken in Monterosso also, but don't quote me on that :).

I have a few more photos of the festively colored houses to show you.  I honestly

am not sure in which villages they were taken but I don't want you to 

miss them.

Notice the clotheslines hanging from the windows~very quaint.

Another interesting thing to know about Cinque Terre is that it is great for hiking.  We did not have the time to go hiking but Leeza was a hiking guide, as well, and she told us that there are great hiking trails all over Cinque Terre.

After our lunch and a bit of shopping around Monterosso, we met our driver and took the very

winding road down the hill and back to Florence.  It was a wonderful day, one that has left a great impression on me.

I hope you have gotten a taste of Cinque Terre from my synopsis of our day trip there.  As with everything else we did on this trip, I would love to go back again and learn more about this very interesting area of Italy.  It seems impossible to take in everything in just one visit.

I hope to have two more installments of my trip: one of Tuscany and one of Rome.

Please stay tuned!