Hello gorgeous! Is this a beautiful place or what? This is the inland view from the apartment we rented in Riomaggiore. And this is the view to the other side, our balcony looked out over the Mediterranean's Gulf of Genoa and it was more than perfect.
We visited in December and look how beautiful the weather was! It was sunny the whole time and there were even some crazy French people out swimming...
Riomaggiore, which dates from the early 13th century, is the southernmost village of the five Cinque Terre, all connected by trail. The water and mountainside have been declared national parks.
The town is literally vertical and people carve their places into the side of the mountain-- citrus trees, gardens, vinyards.
Multiple times a day we took a maze of stairways to get from the town's main drag to our apartment. That is a lot of stairs ...and no elevators!
The Via dell'Amore or The Way of Love, is a path connecting Riomaggiore to it's neighbor, Manarola and is one of the biggest tourist attractions in the area.
After World War II, the trail was renovated and became known as a meeting point for the boys and girls from the two towns. A journalist, who noticed all the amorous graffiti along the path, coined the trail’s name: Via dell’Amore.
Some tourists are put off by the graffiti that covers the trail but it's just part of the history and charm of the lovers’ lane.
Closing a padlock with your lover onto a cable or railing at a lovey-dovey spot—often a bridge—is the current craze in Italy, having been re-popularized by a teen novel. And to profit from this, the hardware store in Riomaggiore sells these locks.
The owner of our apartment met us at the train station and offered to take us on a little stroll to show us around. She met us that afternoon and then... proceeded to walk us over to the next town over! And she has grand children. And she was in heels.
It was a lovely walk and only further fortified my theory that all Italian woman are in better shape than me.
She planned the walk perfectly because we ended up at Manarola as the sun was setting.
Manarola may be the oldest of the towns in the Cinque Terre, with the cornerstone of the church, San Lorenzo, dating from 1338. Manarola is known primarily for its fishing and wine-making. The local wine, called Sciacchetrà, is especially renowned.
Back to Riomaggiore...
The town of Vernazza wasn't accepting visitors due to the flood that destroyed the town last October so we took the train to Monterosso instead.
It was beautiful but shocking to see how the flood devestated the town.
The water in the region is amazingly clear and blue and unseasonably warm. But not warm enough for me to join the crazy, swimming French people.
We visited Manarola again on our last day and I took what I think might be my favorite photo from our time in Cinque Terre:
The sunsets here were so beautiful. The scenery amazing. And the food was out of this world too. And, because of our exhuastive research on tiramisu, we learned that Riomaggiore has the best!
It is so hard to rank our experiences in Italy but this was, by far, one of the best places we visited. It was such a nice change from the hectic pace of Rome and Florence.
I highly recommend it!
