Genoa; Friday, 27 September, 2013

Given I was on leave, it didn’t feel right to be getting up at half seven, but with breakfast only served until 9, and needing to get an early train, I had to head out early.

Down to the Piazza Principa station and onto the train out to La Spezia, as my gateway to the Cinque Terre National park. The Park, made up of five almost inaccessible (apart from the railway line and the goat path that connects them) towns perched on rocks and cliffs on the coast.

First stop was the furthest of the five – Riomaggiore. I had intended on walking the path between a couple of the towns, with the short kilometre or so between Riomaggiore and Manarola being the obvious starting point. However, due to recent landslips both that path, and the next one linking Manarola to Corniglia were closed, so after a look around town I headed back to the station to catch the train back up the line.

The already busy trains weren’t being helped by the number of people who, like me, were having to use the train rather than walk between towns, so it was a tight squeeze, and given the weight of numbers, I decided trying to get out at Manarola wasn’t an option so I stayed on until half the train got off at Corniglia.

Corniglia is the only one of the five towns not directly on the coast, being some 90m up in the cliffs. To reach the town it’s a back breaking almost 360 step climb up the cliff side, or, if like me you’ve brought a Cinque Terre card, 5 minutes on the very convenient electric bus that rattles up the hillside like a demented donkey.

I stopped for a quick lunch in a small trattoria in the main square before having a wander around the town, and then, fortified by a gelato, headed over to the path for the 4KM walk between Corniglia and Vernazza. The signs at the train head said the estimated walking time was 90 minutes to two hours, which given the distance covered indicated quite a bit of climbing.

95 minutes later, and absolutely knackered I reached the end of the path in Vernazza having climbed up to a peak of around 200m above sea level, and then the really knackering part, in the last kilometre or so descended all the way back down to sea level, over some very rocky ground, giant steps and in places, pretty treacherous bits of path.

I had a long wander around Vernazza before deciding that as the 3KM walk to Monterosso was signposted as taking 2 hours+ that included too much climbing and I caught the train instead. I had a wander around the town, before heading down to the harbour at catching the boat back down the coast part Vernazza and Corniglia to Manarola to have a look around the final one of the five towns.

Exhausted, and with the sun starting to fade I headed back to the station to catch the train, bizzarely, further south to La Spezia. There I picked up an InterCity train which overtook the slow stopping train I had let leave without me at Manarola about 30 minutes before it arrived into Genova.

By the time I got back to Genova it was late, the weather had taken a turn for the worse, and I found that the Metro stops running at 20:30, along with most bus routes. To make matters worse as all the metro stations and tabacchi are closed there is nowhere to purchase transport tickets so I had to trudge the 30 minutes back to the hotel in the pouring rain, rapidly going off Genoa as a holiday destination.