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When Julia heard about our plans for today, she exclaimed “ you are crazy!”. We’re talking about around 250 miles of driving round trip, plus 3 train rides. And then there’s the walking we’ll do at each stop.

Cinque Terre is a National Park and World Heritage Site. The “Five Earths” are five villages tucked in the rugged Italian Riviera coast that basically are only reached by boat, train or hike. There are roads which are extremely rugged and don’t go all the way into the towns themselves except by permit. Ferries and trains run from the gateway city La Spezia to each town. All within the Cinque Terre National Park, they are also interconnected by hiking trails that traverse up and down the mountains, along the coastal cliffs and through the terraced vineyards and olive groves.

We chose to go to the fourth and fifth towns, Vernazza and Monterossa al Mer, the two most northern. We drove over 2.5 hours to La Spezia Centrale Train Station and then took the train to the Cinque Terre towns.

We left our hotel at around 8AM, arriving at La Spezia train station before 11AM. we purchased on/off day tickets for €20 and caught the first northbound train, which leave around every 20 minutes. It was only a fifteen minute train ride to Vernazza, since the trains run mostly through tunnels along the coastal.

Laura and I had stayed in Vernazza about 15 years ago in November. Today was a lot more crowded than our stay in November. The main street down from the train station to the water was fairly packed with visitors, outdoor cafe seating and vendors. After walking around a bit admiring the stunning sights, we found a restaurant that could seat 8 and had a light lunch. After lunch three of us went up the Cinque Terre trailhead to go up to the higher elevations for a better view, while the others went shopping. We met back at the train station around 1:30 to catch a train to the next town.

Monterossa al Mer is flatter than Vernazza and has a fairly good size beach. The buildings are still multi-colored and plenty of narrow streets and shops. Laura and others brought a few more things, while the rest of us walked around and had some refreshments. The beach was fairly crowded with a few people actually in the water.

We took the train back to La Spezia and drove an hour to Pisa, arriving around 6PM, just in time for sunset at the Tower of Pisa. While you don’t need tickets onto the grounds around the pisa Cathedral and Tower, you need tickets to go inside and the buildings – cathedral, baptistry, tower and museum. We just walked around the tower to catch it at different sides. Lot’s of fun pictures, just like most everyone else.

From there was a 2 hour drive back to Castel Pietraio where we were staying, getting back around 9PM. But first, we stopped at the local pizzeria again to get something to eat. It was a long day, but lots of fun.

BTW, the next morning Julia was surprised we were back so early. She was expecting to hear 1AM or so.