Cinque Terre, Italy

 Cinque Terre, Italy. If you've been, you enevitably loved it because it is FABULOUS. We spent 4 nights in the town of Monterosso and I would be happy to go back to this beautiful part of the world and do more at a later date.

For some members of our family, though, this part of our trip was hard. Our littlest family member had a sniffle and a fever while in San Marino, and then by the time we got to Monterosso, Ava got it. Then we all got some version of it. Everyone had some version of head ache/sore throat /sniffle/fever/cough/yucky. But poor Ava really got zonked (negative covid test thankfully). She couldn't do much of anything the whole time we were there, which also meant that our family split up and some people stayed behind with the sick side of life while others went out loving life. Each person's experience would have been a little different from another person in our group here because we all kept changing who was a part of what activity. 

On the great side of healthy things outside of our house, the area and the activities were SUPER. I feel so so grateful that we were here when things were not crowded, because in the summer this place is just PACKED with people and it would be too much. We were lucky with the weather = we had some good sunshine, even if it was still cool. There were certainly still lots of tourists but we could easily walk around / hike on the trails / get on the trains without a hassle.

The layout of the Cinque Terre region is such that these 5-6 adorable towns along the coast are close enough to hike between and ride a short train between. In the summer, you can also ferry between them, but we were here at the end of February and our options were to hike or train. 

I'm just going to type out the order of the villages from North to South:

Levano (not actually included in the Cinque Terre region)

Monterosso (where we stayed, and arguably has the beast beach access)

Vernazza 

Corgniglia (up higher, cliff side ocean views, with many stairs to get from the train station to the town)

Manarola 

Riomaggiore (the southern most town, closest to the next big city and transit hub of La Spezia)

Here are the activities we did:

Rented bikes in Levano

This was glorius. We caught the train one stop to Levano, walked a short walk to the very friendly bike store, and rented bikes and helmets for half a day. There were kids and adult bikes and a seat for a preschooler rider. We biked the 2 blocks through town to get to a bike path that used to be a railroad track, and is now paved. We rode about 6km/3.5miles out and then back again, with lovely sea views and lots of tunnels. At the end there wasn't a lot going on, but riding our bikes next to the gorgeous coloured water was really fun.

Daddy and Ava stayed home with a short beach walk while the rest of us biked

Hiking all the trails

Day one: M and R hiked Levano to Monterosso, J also ran this plus miles and mountains more

Day two: 

The logisitcs of who went where on this day were pretty confusing... can you keep up with this scenario?!?

Initially J, M, R, A, and K were going to hike from Venazza to Corniglia. But shortly into the hike up the stairs out of the city, Ava got a nosebleed and did not feel good. So Jason and Ava went back. This actually ended up being quite an adventure as they needed to intercept a train to find S and little M in order to grab the house keys and go back home.

S and little M took the train to Corniglia and hiked up the huge staircase to the top. MRAK hiked to Corniglia and met them and we enjoyed walking around the town, having gelato and crepes. Then K, R, and little M went down the stairs and took the train home. 

M and S continued hiking along to Manarola before taking the train home.

Vernazza

Leaving Vernazza

Looking toward Corniglia

Coming into Manarola

Manarola

Day two: we all spent some time at the beach in the afternoon.

J and S both went fully in the water

R also went fully in

Day three:

SKMJR took the train to Manarola, and then hiked the short but very steep set of stairs up and over a mountain and down to Riomaggiore. From there, everyone but J caught the train home and J went for a long and hilly training run (22 miles I think) which kicked his butt big time. 

(It turns out it was one of those runs that you do when you're a little sick that tips you over into the being sick for sure category.)

I thought this region was an amazing combination of cute little towns, good food, loads of trails and hills to explore, beach/coast, and easy access between all the villages via the train. Everyone had great experiences here (except poor Ava) and I really would recommend going if you're able to plan a trip to Italy.