Monday, June 20, 2011

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



8 comments:

Unknown said...

Beautiful pictures.

Unknown said...

OH!! I love cinque terra! So gorgeous and the food, wine and people were pretty amazing as well! Lovely post!

Roller Coaster said...

Oh my gosh, these pictures are amazing! Looks like you guys had a wonderful time.

And I'm so sorry for being the world's worst bloggy friend. I have been AWFUL about reading blogs in the past couple of months, and I had no idea you were pregnant. So here's a very belated CONGRATULATIONS!!! How exciting!

Anonymous said...

It looks super relaxing, and you look gorgeous!!

melissa said...

Wow, what a beautiful town. Absolutely gorgeous views. And how fabulous do you look?!?! What a gorgeous pregnant lady you are!

Cat said...

I went to Cinque Terre a few years back and can see why you weren't as impressed. Yes, it is beautiful, but it doesn't have a lot to do other than sit on the beach. I enjoyed a beautiful hike through all 5 towns, which I wouldn't recommend to a pregnant gal.

Michelle said...

Oh, man, I'm sorry it didn't live up to the hype. But your photos are fabulous! :) And it sounds like the food was good.

Samual said...

Really beautiful pics. I enjoyed your Blog very much. The beautiful beach chairs will add more fun while you go outdoors to spent vacations at beach.