Next stop on the cruise was at Livorno port nearby Florence, Italy. Myself and a couple of my family members had already been to Florence, and so we decided to rather drive up to Cinque Terre, which is only about an hour's drive to the closest port. This was one of the places I was most looking forward to because Cinque Terre has recently become very popular among travellers of all kinds, and I knew a few people who had been and raved about it! It's basically in northern Italy along the west coast, and consists of 5 headlands/capes of rocky land jutting out into the ocean, with these really sweet, pretty little 5 towns located between them. The only way (as far as I could gather) to get between them is by train (through the mountain) or ferry, we opted for both. So we drove up to Porto Venere, which is a cute little city right at the bottom of the cape (and not actually part of Cinque Terre), where we wondered around for a bit. It has a lovely promenade and right at the end there is a church called St. Peter's, which is really beautiful and has the most stunning views out on the water and up in the direction of the Cinque Terre. You can also walk back through the little town from the church and see the cute little authentic shops and colourful buildings forming narrow alleyways.
From Porto Venere, we caught a ferry up to the top little village of Monterosso. The whole trip was about an hour and really very pretty. Monterosso's beach front is lined with beach chairs and umbrellas all along the cobbled beaches, and was absolutely packed. We could barely find a spot on the beach to put down our stuff, but the swim in the sea was definitely worth it! This region is also meant to be known for their pesto, so we then set out on a mission to find some pesto pasta for lunch. We succeeded, and I can undoubtedly say this was the best pesto I've ever had, yuuum! We wondered along the main beachfront street for a while, looking in at some of the clothes shops, etc. and then headed up to the train station to catch a short train to Riomaggiore. RIomaggiore is so stunning, its right all the way up the steep mountain side and is filled with loads of buildings of all different colours, and steep streets. We wondered up (the walk is a bit of a trek, but definitely manageable and worth it) to get a good look at the view right from the top, which was actually just beyond beautiful!
We obviously only had a day here, and so could only manage to see two of the 5 "terres", but I've heard that they are all really lovely, and if you stay here for a while, you can also hike between them, which is apparently very cool. So yeah, there' quite bit to do and a ton of beautiful things to see here. Not to mention that Pisa is also pretty close by (maybe like a 45 minute drive or so) as is Florence.
We all really loved Cinque Terre, it is extremely pretty and had a lot of charm. I will say in mid-summer it was quite touristy and was pretty packed,d but that didn't take away from the experience.
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| Portovenere |
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| Monterosso |
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| Riomaggiore |
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| Looking down on Riomaggiore |
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