Cinque Terre 2

Five villages make up the Cinque Terre. They are Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and Monterosso. A railway line burrows through the steep sea cliffs connecting the villages to the outside world. It wasn’t always the case. The footpaths that lace through the hills have been used a thousand years by the villagers. They now form a network of trails that make a hiker’s paradise.

The trails wind through hill and dale, descending into one community and ascending to another, from sea level to as much as 800 meters (think Gros Morne). Each spectacular view gives testimony of nature’s sheer cliffs and crashing waves gently yielding to man’s rock walls, stick fences, and dirt paths. Some of the paths are less than a foot wide.

Our accommodations are in Volastra, a hamlet high above Manarola. Our pace slows down, we are no longer racing to museums and market squares. Monica and I hike to neighboring Corniglia. From the cliffs we can view Riomaggiore behind us and Monterosso off in a distance. We pass visitors from many countries: Australia, United States, Canada, France, Germany, and of course, Italy. We hear hello, bonjour, guten tag, buon giorno and some greetings we don’t recognize.

The footpaths widen and give way to cobblestones as we spiral down to the village center. The shops are small and few. The apartment-like accommodations of the residents are joined and so are the pastel-coloured buildings. The village is built like a stone fortress. It even has a look-out tower, a reminder of Genoese invaders in medieval times.