It’s always hard to say goodbyes, but a must in our case, we must say goodbye to Florence. On to Cinque Terre for three nights. But since we have flexible rail passes, we made a long stop in Pisa. We stowed our luggage and went for a quick look about the town. The walk was about a mile, so we got our steps in. We got lucky with beautiful weather and were surprised by the surrounding property. I grew up hearing about the leaning tower of Pisa but thought it was just like one building that had a bad foundation. I would have loved to have spent more time here, but we did make the most out of it and are now off on to Cinque Terre.
I’ve seen photos of Cinque Terre and thought I had a pretty good idea of it. In some ways, my mental concept was spot on, and in others, it was not even close. Yes, it’s very hilly – you have towns on the cliffs. But somewhere in my mind, I had the walks as straightforward, just like walking on a sidewalk. Also, the distance is a little further about than what I had imagined. But the narrow streets and steps were just as tricky as I had thought. Of course, one does need to be in reasonably good shape. If not, you will be by the time you leave.
Our place was in Riomaggiore. The actual house was tiny and had not much room for two people, but it was okay since we only slept there. But our patio made up for the small house. We had a table for six and three lounge chairs to relax and watch the sunsets and the stars. The first night we got two pizza’s to bring back to the patio and had some wine to watch the sunset—a truly relaxing time. Sunset is an event every night in Riomaggiore. It’s like the town comes out to watch fireworks.
Though we were only staying three nights in Cinque Terre, we did a private wine tasting at LVNAE. We thought it would be fun to explore Sarzana before catching a Taxi to the vineyard. We didn’t know that most Sarzana closes from 12:30 – 4 because of a lack of tourists. So we missed out on the fortress and shopping, but enjoyed the lemon trees and had a nice lunch.
Katy and I are seasoned travelers and don’t usually get on the wrong train or miss flights. But in Cinque Terre, we did make a mistake that turned out to be a great find. We purchased a day pass to ride the ferry from Riomaggiore to Monterosso. Unfortunately, we got on the wrong boat and went to Porto Venere. Porto Venere is worth the boat ride if you ever visit Cinque Terre. In Porto Venere, it was easy to fix our mistake, and we were quickly on our way to Monterosso.
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