Ah Cinque Terre

We have our pass and we are now on the train to get towards the village to do our walk along the beautiful rugged coastal line which is part of the Italian riviera.We start at Riomaggiore and it's a little windy, but you get a real sense of a lovely fishing village here. They have the classic old Italian fishing boats with such vivid bright blues. We walk up the top to see the views and meet the lovely Peter and Wendy from Gerringong in NSW. We take shots of each other and say our goodbyes as we may catch you in the next town. We continue on to Manarola and you walk on a cemented path, and one part is for the lovers (Via Dell'Amore). They have all these locks with people's names on as a declaration of their love. I saw a little Huggies nappy tied up next to the locks and I thought maybe that is the next step of the love! The lemon trees are everywhere and I forgot to mention that in Levanto the lemons were as big as grapefruits, but long like a droplet. You can see why the Italians thought "what can we do with all of these? Why don't we make a liqueur - limoncello perhaps." The cliffs and the views are fabulous. We can't walk to Corniglia as they had a huge mudslide last October of 2011. From our view you can see four tracks that have washed the hill away in parts. I can't quite see how this will be repaired and not so quickly. We catch the train and we view Corniglia.  They have all these old black and white shots of the men and women who carted down all the grapes on their heads from the vineyards. I grab my first slice of pizza and some piccolo dolce - yummm. We bump into Peter and Wendy as they enjoy lunch at the hotel and we head back. Next stop Vernazza. Mum has an interesting story to tell re what happened at this station. We get off at Vernazza and it's so devastating as this is the village I walked to in 2002. This village was absolutely wrecked even worse by the floods and the smell is still lingering, and no boats are in the sea. If you can imagine a lovely shop front and you look up to the roof - that was the height of the water that rushed down the mountain and ruined the bottom of the town and their livelihood. From here we start the rugged walk to Monterosso and it takes us about 2.5 hrs. As we climbed so high we had the inefficient cooling systems at full tilt. Our thighs and calves are going to peel open like a banana! We battle on through moss, a little water, some rickety old fences, and pass people who look exhausted. We then see real devastation where houses on the cliffs have been washed away; they have no floors and there are only window frames left. The path at times is so narrow and it's best not to look down. As we are descending, we come across a little vineyard and a man has a hole in the fence where he offers fresh homemade lemonade, limoncello & wine; Mum and I scull two lemonades. We make our way around to Monterosso with many leg stretches. We have a lovely dinner in the village and the owner's husband was a great rower and they display many trophies. It's a great eclectic mix of art and family photos. We decide that we will catch the train back to Levanto at 8.30pm but after many cancelations we make it back to our hotel by 10pm. DC, thankfully we didn't have to share a pillow at the Oasi.