Day 39 - Cinque Terre

Today we hiked through all 5 towns of the Cinque Terre - a total of 11 km and some very large unknown number of step! The weather was sunny and warm, if a bit hazy, and was a perfect temperature for hiking and exploring the beautiful Ligurian Coast.

We spent time wandering the streets of each picturesque village - Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and Monterosso. We ate a light lunch in Vernazza and topped it off with a gelati in Monterosso. We had such a wonderful leisurely day, spending over 6 hours exploring the trails and coast and each quaint, quintessential Italian town.

We purchased 5:00pm ferry tickets in Monterosso to return to Riomaggiore by water. The evening views of the coast are beautiful and we were admiring the scenery as we realized that we were motoring right by our intended destination - oops. We had accidentally boarded the wrong ferry in Monterosso. There were 2 ferries leaving the harbor at the same time and no one was checking tickets as we boarded. There wasn't much we could do at this point, so we sat back and enjoyed the evening boat ride until we landed. We figured out that we were headed around the point of Portovenere and sure enough, that is where we docked. We disembarked, inquired at the ticket office as to what we should do. We had 2 choices - ferry or bus to La Spezia and then train back to Riomaggiore. We chose the ferry. By the time we landed in La Spezia it was dark, but we found a map at a bus stop and made our way to the train station and purchased tickets back to Riomaggiore. The train was running incredibly late - 1.5 hours - and while we were waiting we met some other travelers who were also headed to Riomaggiore and trying, without success, to use the phone to arrange for accommodations. We let them borrow our Italian calling card which we had purchased way back in Florence. And we gave them the number of the agent that had arranged our room for us. The train finally arrived and we made it back to our room - what an unexpected adventure!