Cinque Terre

On our babymoon, we took a day trip from Rapallo, Italy to Cinque Terre. 

Cinque Terre is a region in the Italian Riviera made up of five small towns. 

Several of our friends have been and raved about it. Before we went, it had been

built up by so many people. Even Rick Steves speaks highly of this region.

 This definitely raised our expectations.

In the end though, the region didnt live up to all the hype. 

Our first stop was Monterosso Al Mare, which is the first and largest of the five towns. 

It's supposed to the be most "touristy." It was our favorite of the two that we saw.

It is a small town with two pebble beaches, some restaurants and shops. 

Honestly, there wasnt much to it, but we loved it.

We rented a couple of beach chairs and hung out on the beach. 

This was exactly what we wanted to do. 

Relax.

Enjoy each other and the view.

I really wanted to go swimming, but the water was ice cold.

J braved it twice, but I dipped a toe in and deemed

it far too cold to enjoy.

We had a fantastic lunch and really enjoyed our time at the beach, but there 

wasnt anything super special about the town.

After lunch we hopped on the train to Vernazza, the next town in the region.

We were very impressed with the train system and how easy it was to navigate. 

Vernazza was beautiful, but very small. 

There were some shops, restaurants a small pebbly beach and some castle ruins. 

There wasnt much to see or do, but we had some great food and got some

fantastic souvenirs. Important souvenirs like wine, pesto and pasta. 

We would have stayed later, but the train workers were going on 

strike that night at 9pm, so we had to leave early. 

We had a great day and really liked the region, but it was definitely

not as fantastic as it was made out to be. We're so happy that 

we stayed in Rapallo and not Cinque Terre. 

It was a great experience, but now that's it's checked off our list, we'll 

probably not go back. 

Here are the photos from that day.

Enjoy! 

Our super cheep train tickets! 

Monterosso Al Mare

Love the beach!

We rented beach chairs and relaxed for a couple of hours.
It was Heaven! 

The water was beautiful, but freezing!

Enjoying lunch on the beach

Vernazza 

The rocky harbor 

Some crazy Aussies were cliff jumping

It's a really small town

Corniglia from afar