Saturday was our second and last day in Cinque Terre. We bought a day train pass (discounted for 70+)…about 23 euros for adults and 18 for 70+. It included the Riomaggiore to Manarola walk (Via Dell’Amore).
We took the train to Riomaggiore first but accidentally got on an IC train instead of a regional train…and it took us nonstop to La Spezia. We didn’t have tickets for that type of train, but the ticket taker on the train ignored us (perhaps deliberately?) and we hopped off as fast as we could in La Spezia. Since we were there, I. looked up what to do…and surprise…there was a castle (gps said the walk was mostly flat with a few stairs…there were lots of stairs, castles usually were built on a high point of the town). We also passed some stairs on the way and I jogged up then for the view…nice jog up but the view was mostly obscured by trees (even though they weren’t leafed out yet).
I returned down to the group and we went on to the castle (5 euros for 65+) and walked through the exhibits of locally found Roman and ancient ruins and artifacts to get to the two terraces. The view of the harbor and town were quite good. We took the (free) funicular down and walked back to the train station where we did get on a Regionale train to Riomaggiore, one of the two Cinque Terre towns we had yet to visit. There was no hiking in the area Saturday due to races going on..long ones too, 100 km and I think about 50km. Many of the racers were entering the town as we walked through it. I walked down to the waterfront (steep stairs) for a photo of the old city and we went up to the castle. There I learned that we needed to get a timed ticket (free) to walk the Via Dell/Amore. So instead of going back to the train station, I googled info point…which was on the other side of the town and closed..more steps for us!
We had lunch sitting on a bench in the old town…pizza for Tim, Susan and Tracey and pesto focaccia for me, pesto and focaccia being specialties of the region. Then we walked back to the train station to get the tickets to the walk, which started near the train station. It wasn’t a long walk and didn’t take us all the way into Manarola, the path being closed for work on the Manarola end. But it was pretty and would be a good rainy day activity as it was a pedestrian path and covered.
Next up was Manarola, a really pretty town with several churches. The train was packed leaving Riomaggiore. The main street of the old town was lined with houses, shops and boats. We walked down to the waterfront and then along another pedestrian path which gave way to a beautiful view of the village from the water. There were lots of tourists walking and racers running through the town.
We next took a train to Levanto, part of the Unesco world heritage site and much bigger than the Cinque Terre villages, having 5-6000 inhabitants. There were a lot of interestingly painted houses, many shops (a nice fruit and vegetable shop which we took advantage of), and a beach. I was vetoed when I suggested waling to the castle even though I said it was “mostly flat” (they did not believe me!).
We got back to Monterosso al Mare around 6pm and cooked the Romesco broccoli we bought (so good and fresh) and heated up the homemade soup I made the day before (also very good if I do say so myself…a modified minestrone) and I had some pesto focaccia!
I’m typing this on the train to Rome. Not wanting the have such a short connection this time, I changed our train from Monterossa to La Spezia by 30 minutes (Trenitalia app to the rescue) and so far the travel has gone smoothly.
