Riomaggiore to Manarola

We were keen to do as much walking as possible while the weather was so lovely on Monday, so after lunch we hopped a train to the southern-most town of the five – Riomaggiore. In my opinion, Rio was the most meh of the towns – it was essentially just a long hill, quite tucked away off the cliffs. Perhaps I was spoiled by the beauty of the other places, but we only took a brief look around before starting on “Via dell’Amore” (the Walk of Love) towards Manarola.

With a wide, paved path the whole way along, this is the easiest of all the walks, and at only 20 minutes (or so), it’s also the shortest. But, it’s also one of the most scenic, since it’s right on the edge of the cliff!

When we got to the other end, we were greeted with one of my favourite of the five towns: Manarola. It’s position certainly made it one of the most scenic, and the path out of town provided a lovely spot for photos!

Unfortunately the walk between Manarola and Corniglia stayed closed for our entire stay, so we couldn’t take that one on. We spent the rest of our afternoon walking around Corniglia, on some of the higher walks above the town, through all the grapevines. We even managed to find a geocache while we were there, and we dropped off our Orca geocoin to start it on its journey.

We decided to have dinner back up in Monterosso. If I were going to Cinque Terre again, I would try to stay in Monterosso. It still has the nice costal village feel of the other towns, but since its slightly bigger than the others, it also has the most variety – a definite advantage when you get stuck by the rain.

Anyway – we were a touch early for dinner, so we stopped for a quick pint at a bar along the start of the walk back to Vernazza. Sitting there with Kristy, overlooking the beach, and enjoying the warm evening air, definitely the highlight of the trip for me. Good times.