Cinque Terre - A Guide

Introduction

This is actually going to be a semi-useful blog. Maybe. I don’t want to speak too soon. Let’s just see how it goes.

Our first piece of advice to anyone planning to visit Cinque Terre in a van is choose your parking spot carefully, near one of the towns, or even La Spezia, then just train it backwards and forwards between the towns. It costs about 2 or 3 euro per journey, per person. You could walk between some of the towns, for example the walk between Riomaggiore and Manarola is only about 25 minutes, but the train is definitely your best bet. Also, we never once had our tickets checked, so my other advice is to not bother buying a ticket. [edit: Since writing I’ve been advised that this is actually bad advice]

Definitely don’t try to drive to and park up at each town, because you won’t be able to. We didn’t clock on about the train until we’d already visited Monterosso, but the eventual spot we found above Riomaggiore was ideal - right above a valley, with a stunning view of Riomaggiore and the ocean in the distance, and only a 15 minute walk to Riomaggiore train station. I’ll put the park4night link at the end of this blog.

I’m also going to go back and put some of the best parking spots we’ve found at the end of each of our previous blogs, so be sure to have a look if you’re about to visit anywhere we’ve been (we’ve been pretty much everywhere…)

I’ll cover each of the towns of Cinque Terre in the order we visited them. Like all good guides, I’ll be sprinkling advice generously, so keep an eye out for it.

And without further ado…

Monterosso al Mare

As I say, before we’d even considered the train network, we found a place to park the van for Monterosso in the hills about an hour’s walk away from the town. Killer. The walk down wasn’t so bad. Or at least it wouldn’t have been if I hadn’t cold shouldered a massive cactus, which proceeded to spit hundreds of it’s tiny needles into my arm and hand. I spent the next three days picking them out. Rach even got some on her after she put her arm around me. That’ll teach her. So, rule 1 - give the cacti a wide berth. To be honest that goes for anywhere. Erm...

I kept Rach entertained on the walk down by playing Jamiroquai on my phone and deliberately singing the wrong lyrics. You have to keep the morale up. Once we finally got to the town we were hot and thirsty, so we stopped for a drink and some free, thirst-quenching salty peanuts. Seriously, don’t bother buying snacks from shops, just order a drink at a bar and watch the free grub roll in. That rule applies to Italy in general.

The bar faced the beach. Monterosso stretches down the coastline and has by far the biggest seaside of all five towns. Corniglia doesn’t have one as it sits way up above sea level. Riomaggiore has more of a rocky bay/harbour than a beach. Same with Manarola. In fact, Vernazza is the only other with it’s own beach. So, if you’re all about the beach, Monterosso might be the ‘terre’ for you.

The other towns have their main streets directing you away from or towards the water, whereas Monterosso is laid out along the coastline. At the far end is an amazing giant statue carved out of the rock, overlooking the sea. At least it looked amazing on Google images; when we got there it was surrounded by scaffolding. Not that there was anything wrong with the scaffolding per se. It was perfectly attractive scaffolding as scaffolding goes. But, you know, it was scaffolding.

The old town - a picturesque network of narrow streets containing bars, restaurants and some great clothes shops - is situated at the opposite end of the town to the statue/scaffolding. You have to walk briefly through a dark tunnel to get there. The tunnel walls have little recesses in them containing displays of different elements of the town e.g. a slab of black and white marble from the church or… I actually can’t remember anything else.

After a pleasant day exploring the town, we sat on a step waiting for a bus for 45 minutes before being told that one wasn’t coming. Do not expect to rely on the buses in Monterosso. We asked a taxi driver how much he charged to take us the 8 minutes back up the hill to the van. 15 euro.

On the walk back up to the van I noticed more of the cacti that fucked me up on the way down. I kept my distance. As I looked I saw one had a face and it was grinning at me. Seriously, someone had drawn eyes and a smiling mouth on it.

The next day we decided to make our way back down in the van and park in a large paid parking lot while we had a swim for a couple of hours. The parking lot is quite expensive - 20 euros a day or about 3 euros an hour. Whatever you do, do NOT put the parking ticket in your trunks pocket and go for a swim. I did. We dried the ticket out on the beach for an hour, but it was apparently still too soggy for the ticket machine. After paying, it refused to spit it back out to us so we could exit the parking lot. We called the help button and spoke to someone who said something indecipherable then disappeared, never to be heard from again. We had no way of getting out so I walked over to the barrier and forced it up myself and called Rach through. By the look on Rach’s face I could tell she was fairly horrified, but I wasn’t gonna stand around all day with my fingers up my arse. Why my fingers would be up my arse I don’t know.

We enjoyed Monterosso, but having left as fugitives we probably won’t ever be going back. And to be fair, that’s okay by us. It was a nice place, but it doesn’t make it into our top three of the five lands.

Riomaggiore

As I said above, we found an amazing place to put the van above Riomaggiore. Find the link at the end of this blog.

It was a 15 minute walk down some steps to the town. I’ll say it right now - Riomaggiore was our favourite of the five. We walked down through the town, past it’s many apartment blocks and down the many steps through its network of tiny streets to the front, which faces an absolutely stunning bay of clear blue green water. Colourful apartment buildings rise up from the rocks surrounding the water and there is always a hustle and bustle around the bay as people jump on and off boats which come and go on tours of the surrounding lands. We were convinced this was the place depicted on the jigsaw my mum got us for the trip. We had to send the jigsaw back to Birmingham months ago after it very quickly became obvious that in order to complete it we were going to ‘need a bigger boat’. Or van in our case. If you are going to be living in a van, leave your 2000 piece jigsaws at home.

After having a drink in a lovely little bar (this is starting to sound like a Mike Skinner tune) we had a walk around the rest of the town. You pass through an underground bit to get to the back end of the town, which consists of a main stretch lined with bars and restaurants. The church is a beautiful building which sits above the main street, overlooking the sea.

We had two glorious meals in Riomaggiore. The first was at Ill Grottino (not the most mouth watering of names, granted); Rach had pesto pasta and I had seafood pasta, one of the tastiest things I’ve ever eaten. Tastier even than the breaded chicken and beans I’d had a few nights earlier. The second meal was on our second evening - we tend to only have one evening meal per day - a cone of fried seafood and chips from a fish and chips takeaway. You could tell it was a good place because the queue was out of the door and the place next door was empty. Il Pescato Cucinato it's called. Check it out. We sat on the bay next to the lapping water with a Birra Moretti each while we ate. Sublime.

Again, the walk back up to the van wasn’t ideal. Especially considering we knew we’d have to do this walk every day after visiting each of the remaining lands. The final time we attacked the steps I counted them as we went because I thought it would make it easier somehow, but Rach didn’t like it. It did make it easier though because I’d told her we had way more to do than we really did. Genius.

Each of the five lands of Cinque Terre are great, and each has something a little different to offer. Having said that, if you only ever get to do one of them, make it Riomaggiore. Quintessential AF.

Corniglia

We loved walking around the tight old stone streets of Corniglia. Italian grannies sat out nattering and young kids ran around playing. It had a real authentic feel to it; much more than Monterosso, which felt more touristy. I suppose Corniglia is the least obvious place to visit for a holiday, as it has no access to the ocean. The village sits up in the hills above the coast. Yes, that meant yet more steps to climb to reach it. Rach was ecstatic.

It really is a pretty place though. Full of little nooks and crannies, little bars and restaurants tucked away on different levels, with balconies overlooking the amazing views of the Ligurian Sea. We had some reasonably priced but very good Moscow Mule cocktails at a bar in a small square. The service from the waitress was so good, really friendly. She actually looked chuffed when we told her we wanted a second round. If that’s the sort of thing that gets her going, she should come out with us in Birmingham - she’d shit herself.

Manarola

Manarola is perhaps the smallest of the five, with the possible exception of Corniglia. It didn’t take long to walk around - it was in the water that we spent the majority of our time. It has a rocky waterfront much like Riomaggiore, but a little more accessible. The water was so fresh and clear. We had a great couple of hours swimming and climbing the rocks. Rach found some sort of ‘’rubbery red thing’’ with tiny tentacles under one rock, so I went over to have a poke at it. Yes we are adults. Shut up.

There is a very popular restaurant at the top of the hill to the right, above Manarola. The queue was utterly ridiculous when we were there. However, it’s worth the walk up to the top just for the view of the pastel coloured town and blue water of the bay below - it’s incredible. At first glance, Manarola was probably the least impressive to us. The village is less picturesque than the other towns as you walk through it, but it’s the view of the town from above that is Manarola’s secret weapon.

I’d not eaten anything on the day we visited Manarola, so after we’d arrived in the afternoon and walked the town and the hill above the bay, I actually felt like I was slowly dying. We got some grub just in the nick of time from a little cafe type place on the main street. I can’t remember the name of the joint but I can thoroughly recommend the place if you quickly need to eat something to avoid starving to death.

Vernazza

Vernazza was definitely our second favourite. It has a great layout; very spacious and welcoming, with lots of different areas to enjoy. Just to be clear, Vernazza is a town, not a children’s playground, as I realise I’ve just made it sound.

It has its own small beach and some great little bars in the main square which the beach runs off. The square is so colourful and vibrant, which again, makes it sound like a Junglebugs Indoor Play Centre. But it isn’t. It's a serious town. Dozens of multi-coloured parasols fill the spaces outside all the bars, where mature adults can go to drink hard liquor.

There is a beautiful cathedral which sits at the edge of the square. A very old one indeed, which is always a sign of quality, I find.

We had a great ice cream at an ice cream place--

--I’m sorry, I’ve clearly run out of steam with this. It was a worthwhile experiment but I’m big enough to admit when something’s failed. It started okay-ish, but let’s be honest, this is not a guide. Let’s just say Cinque Terre is thoroughly worthy of a visit and leave it at that.

I think I'll just go back to writing my usual bollocks on the next blog. Cheers!

Recommended park up for Cinque Terre:

https://park4night.com/lieu/27382/