Rolling and Crashing Waves

Cinque Terre - the Five Lands

Since I started telling people that I was going to be spending four months in Italy, a number of people began mentioning the Cinque Terre region. I had never heard of it before, but once I looked it up, I knew that it was somewhere I wanted to visit. Mom felt the same way, so we ended our week together in Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre is composed of five small towns all very close to each other, right on the shore of the sea and build up into the cliffs. The towns are all connected to each other by hiking trails and trains.

We managed to visit all five of the towns, and the thing that sticks out to me the most were the incredible waves. I finally understand where people came up with the phrase "rolling and crashing waves". The waves would literally roll up from the sea to the shore, and hit the rocks with a resounding crash - over and over again. It was incredible to see.

We actually went to the second city first - Manarola. The city is built on the perfect place on the bluff, trickling down to the water that makes it the most picturesque city of Cinque Terre - at least in my opinion! Manorola also had some art that was exactly what I really like looking at - just really different yet simple. On the hills that were the vineyards of Manorola was a series of large, yet incredible simple wooden figures, depicting scenes from the Bible. Apparently a local artist had promised his father that he would replace the cross on the family grave, and just never stopped creating wooden religious figures that now decorate the hill. I also got the impression that the figures are rotated depending on what time of year it is - so as it was almost Easter, the main scenes being shown were the stations of the cross. I found it's simplicity so refreshing (especially after months of studying Renaissance art), yet it commanded attention.

We walked back to the first city, Riomaggiore (where our hotel was) as the sun was setting. The next morning, we took the train to the last city, Monterosso al Mare. It has one of the only sand beaches in the Cinque Terre area, and Mom did take that opportunity to go wade in the sea. As we were exploring the rest of the city, a mass began to take place outside one of the churches. It was Palm Sunday, and everyone was carrying intricately woven palms. Some of the designs were quite beautiful, I wish that I had more of an opportunity to look at them closely.

We then took the train to Vernazza, the fourth city of Cinque Terre. It's not the smallest or biggest, but to me it seemed like it had quite a bit of character. I can't quite but my finger on why, so I can't really expand on that statement here. I guess if someday you get to Vernazza, make your own opinion! We then hiked to Corniglia. The path went from almost sea level in Vernazza, very high up among the cliffs, and then back down to connect up with Corniglia. It wasn't a flat, easy walk, but the time spent was totally worth the amazing views that were rewarded from the cliffs. Corniglia (which is the smallest town) is the only town that is not on sea level, but entirely up in the cliffs,which creates a slightly different atmosphere than the other towns. But the train station is down by the water, so I managed to get confused and had a hard time finding the station so that we could catch the right train to get home! But it all worked out, we took a later train back to Florence instead.

Cinque Terre is definitely worth a few days of your time to visit - it's small, fun, warm, and beautiful all at the same time, and one of the most unique places I've ever been.