The Cinque Terre are 5 towns on the Ligurian coast, just south of Rapallo. They're renown for their beauty and grace. In the summertime, tourists descend on the towns in crushing waves (or so I am told). We were fortunate in that we visited in November, far outside the tourist season. Sadly, it also meant that almost all the shops were closed.
Even in November, it was a sunny, warm day. Probably in the low 60's. We didn't have time for all 5 towns so we decided to hit Monterossa and Manarola-- bookends of the Cinque Terre. Both are interesting in their own ways. Monterossa is all about the sandy beach, and Manarola offers a "town on the cliffs" experience. We spent about 35 minutes in Monterossa walking along the beach and looking at the scenery. Perhaps the most interesting thing was the big gate over which an Atlas-like figure had been carved in the rocks. We couldn't pass into the "private" area beyond the gate, but it didn't seem like there was much we missed. We wanted to walk south along the beach road to the next town, but we could see in the distance that the road seemed to be under repairs of some sort. |
Lacking confidence in our ability to get to the next town on foot, we hopped the next train down to Manarola. Though siblings, the two towns are quite different. It's a quick descent from the train station down what seems to be the town's only street. It ends abruptly at a cliff face. No beaches here. We ate lunch at a small cafeteria and watched the locals put their fishing dinghies into the water via a boat winch.
Lacking anything better to do, we decided to follow a path running along the cliffs toward Corniglia. We only made it a quarter mile when we discovered that the path was blocked and not in service. We turned back, walked up to a mausoleum with a brilliant view, then decided we had pretty much gotten everything Manarola had to offer that day. We strolled back up to the train station and ended our day at the train station watching the sun carve an arc over the placid blue sea.