HONEYMOON PART TWO: Cinque Terre, Italy

Our next stop was Cinque Terre, Italy.  Cinque Terre translates to "Five Lands" which makes sense because the area is made up of five little villages each built into the rocks on the water.  Our hotel was in Manarola; the second village from the bottom.  We decided this was our favorite stop of the trip! It was partly because we had an AWESOME hotel and partly because the place was so relaxing and not very touristy at all! It was another adventurous drive and parking was about as difficult as it gets, which is why I made Chase park haha.  But once we parked our car (the second time - since we got a ticket the first spot) we were good to go!

Driving in BEAUTIFUL Italy!

There were hundreds of castles along the autostrade (Italian word for autobahn).

WE MADE IT TO LA TORRETTA!!

When we arrived, one of the workers walked alllll the way to our car with us to help get our bags, and then we were greeted with champagne and appetizers on the terrace (appetizers meaning I tried caviar. AH!).  It was one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen and we both immediately fell in love with it. We hung out on the terrace for awhile just taking it in.

This is Manarola from our porch!

After we got settled in we headed back out to the terrace for wine hour. Every night from 5-6pm they served complimentary local wine and prosecco with appetizers on the terrace.  You could actually see the vineyards that were used to make the wine!

Prosecco on the terrace.

The first night there were two other couples there with us.  The first couple was from Australia (more about them later - we became bffs) and the second couple was from...get this...RICHMOND, VIRGINA! What are the chances of that?! haha.  Both couples were much older than us but we all had a blast! At the end of the hour, the couple from VA gave us a fifty euro bill and said "thank you for your service"...SO nice.  So we decided to splurge for dinner that night and go to a place that came highly recommended from all of the locals and the tourist books; Trattoria dal Billy.

Excited about our dinner!

We ordered this appetizer that was supposedly THE thing to order there.  It was a plethora of fancy seafood dishes and they brought out two servings of each item.  The waitress just kept bringing out more and more dishes! Just when we thought we'd reached the end of the appetizer she would bring out another one! I tried a lot of new seafood there.  Then we were stuffed before our main course even came out, but that's never stopped us before.  I ordered homemade "trofie" (a type of pasta) and pesto sauce.  Interesting fact: pesto sauce originated in Cinque Terre.  It was SO SO SO good - good enough that I ordered it the next night for dinner AND bought a jar of pesto and bag of trofie as my souvenir from that stop. hahaha. Chase ordered spaghetti and meat sauce.  And we ordered a bottle of white wine that was made right there in Manarola!

With the cook! (The waitress told me that he used to be an actor/model lol)

Trattoria dal  Billy

The next morning we were greeted with a knock at our door to bring our breakfast! We ate it out on our personal balcony.

Our daily cappucino and breakfast. :)

Day two was our hiking day.  There are trails between each of the five villages that you're supposed to be able to hike. However, I had done some research and knew that the area experienced some pretty devastating mudslides last fall and we had no idea what kind of damage would still be there. While buying our "trail tickets" we learned that the mudslides completely wiped out one of the villages and wiped out two of the four trails.  Bummer! We were so pumped to hike the whole thing but were only able to do two trails.  We started our day walking along the mountain from Manarola back to the first village, Riomaggiore.

Looking back to Manarola.

 As you can tell from the picture, this walk was pretty easy.  No major hills and it was all paved out for us.  Not a workout at all, just beautiful views!

Quick photo in front of the water.

Awesome painting upon arrival in Riomaggiore.

One of many cute fresh food stands.

Main street in Riomaggiore.

After browsing around the shops and streets in Riomaggiore we took the train to Vernazza (second village from the top).  We had to take the train there since the two middle paths were wiped out.  Our plan was to take the train to Vernazza then do the hike from Vernazza to Monterosso (the last village on top). 

Getting off the train in Vernazza.

Main street of Vernazza.

We quickly realized that Vernazza must have been the village that was destroyed by the mudslides.  Every building was completely washed out and there were tons of people working to clear the water/mud out and repair the buildings! It all had to be done maually since it is really difficult to get vehicles in and out of the villages so I assume they will be working hard for a very long time to rebuild the town.

Men working on the buildings.

All of the doors had cool paintings.

One restaurant managed to open quickly after the mudslides.

It is such a shame that Vernazza was hit so hard, because it was truly beautiful! We walked around for a little bit and then tried to find the beginning of the path to the next town. 

We found this little arrow that said "Monterosso" on the side of building and decided to follow it hoping that it led to the path!

Chase reading that we were about to embark on "a steep, treacherous path" that should last two hours! We were not expecting that haha.

BAHAHAHA! Steep and treacherous is right! The trail started with about a million steps!

But it was worth it. This is the view looking back down on Vernazza.  It's beautiful regardless of the damage.

Hiking away..

Pointing to our destination, Monterosso. (I may look happy, but I'm thinking, "We have to walk allllll the way over there?! But there are two huge mountains in our way!")

Things got pretty intense.

These huge aloe plant things were everywhere! They were crazy!

We made it to Monterosso! (Everything/one said it would take 2 hours...just throwin' it out there that we made it in 1 hour and 20 minutes :-P hehe)

Main street of Monterosso.

Buying our first focaccia bread.
Another interesting fact: Focaccia bread originated in Cinque Terre also.
Another interesting fact: I ate it everyday for lunch after I tried it cuz it was so good. 

Oh how I missed the beach..

Can you make out the man carved into the structure?

Eating my first authentic Italian gelato (they call it 'gelati').

Eating his first authentic gelati.

Catching the train back to Manarola!

 Once we got back to Manarola after our long day of hiking/exploring, I wanted to walk out to the spot on the tip of the mountain.  It was the perfect place to get a picture of all of Manarola! After seeing all of the other towns that day, we decided that Manarola was by far our favorite and we were so happy that we stayed there.



Manarola, Cinque Terre.

Us in front of Manarola.

 After getting back for the day, we showered up and got ready for wine hour on the terrace!

La Torretta main terrace.

Appetizers and white wine.

We had another fun hour talking with our Australian friends.  They talked about what they did that day (They hiked the same path we did but went the opposite way. We actually passed them in the middle of the hike!) and we told each other all about where we were from.  SO interesting. They own a B&B in Australia so we're just gonna have to visit Australia now. ;)

Restaurant #2: Trattoria La Scogliera.

After dinner we walked back out to the tip of the mountain to look back at Manarola and watch the sunset over the water.

The end to another amazing, adventurous day!  Couldn't be happier. :)

Day Three was our last full day in Cinque Terre and the weather was trying not to cooperate with us.  However, by about 11am the rain cleared and the sun came out for a little while.  We decided to take the train to Corniglia (the middle village) since that was the only one we didn't walk around the day before.  Our Australian friends warned us that right after you get off the train in Corniglia you have to walk up about 380 stairs to get to the town. Hey, at least we were warned!

There was no way I was going to let us start our trip to Corniglia without getting some focaccia for lunch first!

Validating my train ticket.

Waiting for the train. Unlike Germany, the trains in Cinque Terre were always late! One time, it was 20 minutes late.  We couldn't believe it haha.

Just got off the train in Corniglia.
(If you look in the background you can see Manarola in the distance)

About to take on the challenge!



380 steps later...Corniglia!

Quick photo in front of the village on our way to find the marina.

You know those 380 steps we had to go up to get to the town? Well we had to go down just about that many on the other side to get to the marina! But it was worth it.
(sidenote: isn't Chase so handsome?)

At the marina!

Loved this! It's hard to capture in a photo, but the storm was picking up again right when we got to the bottom, so the waves were crashing against the rocks like crazy!

Since the rain picked up we decided it was time to catch the train back to Manarola.  Once we got back to Manarola I NEEDED some focaccia bread for a snack haha.  Only this time I tried a piece with sliced potatoes, pesto, and green beans on it...sounds gross, but it was the best thing I've ever had! Then we walked around the shops a little bit since we hadn't actually browsed in Manarola yet.

Focaccia with potato, pesto, and green beans. YUM.

Italian bowtie pasta haha. I thought this was too cool.

The sun came back out right when we got back.  The streets of Manarola. :)

The church right next to La Torretta.

Inside the church.

Once we got back to La Torretta, the weather had completely cleared up and it was beautiful! We decided to take advantage of the sun, and go sit out on the solarium for an hour or so. Look how pretty it got:

Gorgeous weather for our last night in Cinque Terre.

Champagne at the solarium.

This was the boy that helped us the whole time we were there. He served the wine hour, gave us three plates of appetizers when we were only supposed to get one, and helped with our bags!

After soaking up a few rays, it was about time for wine hour! We were so excited to hang out with our Australian friends for the last night.  Turns out that another couple (from Texas) was there that night, so all six of us sat around talking waaayyyy past the end of wine hour.  Tim (Australian gentleman) went to get some "nibbles" for us to eat while we went and got the wine we had in our room and the six of us had a blast! I just had to get a picture with Tim and Rachel (I wish I recorded them talking...their accent was awesome!)

Us with our favorite Australians, Tim and Rachel.

We went out to dinner at Trattoria La Scogliera again because neither of the other couples had been there and it was delicious! Tim ordered two bottles of prosecco right off the bat, so it was another fun night to say the least. haha.  We stayed about 45 minutes after the restaurant closed and the owners didn't even make us leave! It was a great way to say goodbye to Cinque Terre.  We are already trying to plan a trip to visit them in Australia at the bed and breakfast. :)

We stayed out way too late and had a little too much fun but crashed hard once we got back to the hotel.  It was up early the next morning to hit our next stop! When we woke up the next morning, the weather was amazing. Of course on the day we were leaving the sun was out.  At least I got one more gorgeous picture before heading out.

Overall, we absolutely loved Cinque Terre, and especially Manarola.  After walking around each of the five villages we decided that each had its own vibe - all wonderful.  We're thinking about making Cinque Terre an anniversary vacation location in the future.  And we will definitely be staying at La Torretta when we make it back there. If anyone is looking for a beautiful place in Italy that is fun, relaxing, and authentic - Cinque Terre is the place to go.



Ciao, Manarola! See you again soon! :)

Another one for the win column.  Best honeymoon ever...and it wasn't even over yet!