Cinque Terre - Page 2

Boat trip along the coast to Portovenere, from there hike to La Spezia

Today we wanted to recreate the postcard motif, which shows the remote villages from the sea side. So we booked the offered boat tour to Portovenere. It was cloudy and chilly today, but the colorful spots of the villages on the cliffs were beautiful to look at. We passed the offshore rock with the church of San Pietro, then we turned into the port of Portovenere. The town is located on the Gulf of La Spezia. Because of its beauty, numerous authors worked here, so it is also called the Gulf of Poets. Here, too, the typical colorful houses are present on the shore. Above the town towers the Castello Doria, a mighty fortress, which was built in the 12th century to protect the town from pirate attacks. After the obligatory Capucchino in the village we wanted to move today and decided to walk to La Spezia.

Stupid decision, we walked for 2-3 hours only along main roads in the rain. Just before the city we passed closed military areas. About the Piazza Giuseppe Garibaldi we then strolled towards the port. Passing the beautiful Chiesa di Nostra Signora della Neve, we came to the local central church. In an unusual round shape stands the Cattedrale di Cristo Re not far from the ferry port. Along the harbor we walked between the palm trees of the Parco Salvador Allende to the train station. From there we took the Cinque Terre Express to Riomaggiore, tomorrow we could not have hiked there, the only 1.5 km long known Via dell'Amore is closed because of landslide. The weather had meanwhile become conciliatory again, so we hiked over winding paths to the church of San Giovanni Battista. Behind every corner, between house walls or on plateaus, the views of coast and sea were getting better and better. Every minute the colors changed, the sun slowly set.

Vernazza - Corniglia - Manarola

So that the last destination was always the new starting point of our hike, today we took the train to Vernazza. From there the hiking trail leads steadily uphill, first a long stone staircase. Again and again you have a wonderful view back to Vernazza. Many cacti line the path, in between here and there a picture of the Virgin Mary. At the viewpoint Punta Palma about half of the way to Corniglia is done. After endless steps down, we arrived in the small village. It's warm today, in the center of the village we took a break. Everywhere here you have wonderful views of the coastal landscape. White wine is traditionally grown here on surrounding terraced fields. Corniglia is the smallest of the five villages, it is the only village not directly on the water, but on a 100 meter high rock. That's why you have to climb up and down a lot of steps to get to the train station. However, we want to continue hiking to Manarola.

First it goes steeply uphill on stony stairs, then on narrow paths further through Mediterranean mixed forest. Accompanied again by magnificent views down to the sea or back to Corniglia. At an altitude of about 400 meters, the path leads through a terraced vineyard to the village of Volastra. From there many stairs lead down to the coast, a panoramic path brought us at the end down to Manarola. I do not want to imagine the partly narrow paths today in summer. For us it was good this way and every other evening we rewarded ourselves with pizza and beer at the destination 🙂. The colorful houses in Manarola are extremely nested, over and next to each other, built into the rocks. Every small surface is used.

In the bar i read something about the place, one should speak here even an own dialect, manarolesian 🙂. Hmm, when is a language its own language and when only a dialect? Still about 7000 languages are known, dialect counts are hard to find because of imprecise demarcation. Which language difference makes a dialect? Already if you drive in Saxony from Chemnitz 10 km in the direction of the Ore Mountains, one suddenly understands the people only with difficulty. That happens when the brain goes into relaxation mode 🙂. Down at the sea lie huge boulders, a good opportunity to photograph the pretty village from the sea side. The evening then wrapped the harbor in wonderful colors.