Cinque Terre and Porto Venere

We took a train ride from Rapallo to Cinque Terre yesterday. Cinque Terre is in Liguria, and it's a series of 5 towns that are built right into the mountains. They are linked by a long bridge/walkway that snakes along the edge of the mountain, with the clear blue sea below. Unfortunately, this past October two of the towns were almost completely destroyed by floods and mudslides.

We got off the train in Manarola, the fourth of the five towns. We made our way along the mountainside, so happy to be in the warm sun and with such incredibly beautiful everything all around us. We walked along Via dell'Amore (Lover's Lane) to the fifth town of Cinque Terre, Riomaggiore. From there we took a half-hour boat ride to Porto Venere, another ancient seaside/mountainside town but not technically part of Cinque Terre.

Porto Venere was just awesome. Aside from the colorful buildings, mountains-meet-the-ocean beauty of the other towns of Cinque Terre and the Italian Riveria, Porto Venere has ancient ruins to boot. We climbed to top of a rocky hill and saw Chiesa di San Pietro, a 12th Century gothic church. Around the church were crumbling ruins of medieval fortresses. Then we climbed up further to another ancient church and a castle. As we made our way back down and were right below the church bell tower, surrounded by lush greenery and ancient stone ruins, the church bells started clanging this long and lovely song to mark 4:30pm. It was so magical!

We took an hour boat ride back from
Porto Venere to Monterosso, with a view of endless sparkling blue waters on one side and giant lush green mountains dotted with ancient colorful clusters of buildings that make up the towns of Cinque Terre on the other. The sky was perfectly blue, the sun was shining, and we could see reflections of the mountains & the clouds on the water below.

Monterosso is the biggest town of Cinque Terre which is still undergoing re-construction after the destruction of last October. We relaxed there for about an hour while waiting for our train home, and enjoyed the most delicious focaccia I've ever had in my life.

Yesterday was totally a surreal dream come true. Everything was just so gorgeous. While waiting for our boat to Porto Venere, we climbed down the bottom part of the mountain to get to the piles of giant rocks that are along the water. For about twenty minutes, I laid on a flat, cool, sparkling slab of white marble and just soaked in the sun. Ketch climbed around a bit more, and then we just sat together on the rocks, surrounded by so much beauty. It was nuts. Totally romantic & dreamy...