We took the local train to Riomaggiore, the most southern village in the Cinque Terre, and started working our way back north. After exploring that village, we walked the 1 km path to the next village, Manarola, where we had lunch sitting by the sea (very expensive hot dogs). We hopped back on the train, and stopped at Vernazza, a port with a medieval castle overlooking the sea and the town. We walked many steps up to the top of the castle, to get some spectacular pictures of the area. Since we had explored Monterosso yesterday, we skipped that stop on our way back to our hotel in Levanto.

 

Today, we can truly say that we did “planes, trains, and automobiles” on this trip, in addition to a cruise ship. We had wonderful weather today... sunny, not too hot, enough wind to keep it cool. It was a perfect day to explore these little towns. Dan and I took over 300 pictures today, plus video. We also bought a CD with over 230 screen saver pictures of the area. We are really glad we stopped here and took advantage of the opportunity to explore this area. Tomorrow we might catch the fifth village, Corniglia, before driving up to Bologna.

 

I am fascinated with how they have protected this environment. The train between the five villages and Levanto, runs mostly inside a tunnel. Tourist automobile traffic is restricted to the outskirts of the villages, except the first one we visited, Monterosso, where the parking lot was down near the beach. There are also ferries that travel between all the villages (except Corniglia, which is also on top of a hill... 365 steps up from the train station... I wonder why we didn’t stop there today!).