We woke up refreshed on day two in the Cinque Terre, and headed out into the rainy morning to grab some coffee! Even in the rain, Vernazza was stunning. Somehow, the water looked even more blue! We walked from our airbnb to the water to see what kind of local cafes there were and found one right by the Santa Margherita di Antiochia Church. We grabbed two cappuccinos and cornetti (Italian crossaints that are sweet) to start our day. Feeling energized we headed to the train station to get our Cinque Terre Cards. I had done a lot of research about the Cinque Terre, and found that this was the best way to get around to all the towns. We got the 48 hour cards which were about $30 per person and allowed unlimited train rides and access to the hiking trails! We highly recommend if you are staying any longer than just stopping through.
Our first destination was Riomaggiore which is the southern most town of the Cinque Terre. Riomaggiore is considered to be the most peaceful and quiet of the five towns. We felt that immediately as we made our way from the train station down to the natural harbor in the light drizzle. They town had its houses set up into the hills and were painted every color you could imagine! Once near the harbor we grabbed some focaccia from a tiny little shop named Panifico Rosi, and two more cappuccinos from Il Maggiore. We took our second breakfast to the first bench we found overlooking the water and tried to imagine what it would be like to do this every morning! As the rain cleared we followed the hiking paths through the town to find some great locations to photograph the city. We found a staircase down to the rocks of the harbor that give an amazing view of the coastline. We continued along the path and up and down a bunch of stairs until we found a huge (mostly hidden) beach with rocky shores! Just as we stepped on the beach, the skies cleared and the sun came out in full force! It seriously felt like a scene out of a movie! We probably spent an hour walking around and exploring this beach and just taking it all in! We were starting to get hungry so we headed back to the harbor and grabbed two seafood cones. These are paper cones filled with fresh fried seafood of your choice and are one of the foods the Cinque Terre is known for. We got ours from Tutti Frutti and I got the fried calamari and Blake got the fish n chips. Both were delicious and we highly recommend you try one if you’re ever in the Cinque Terre! We slowly began our walk back to the train station because the views all around were too amazing, we just had to stop countless times for photos!
Next, we headed to Corniglia the middle of the five towns of the Cinque Terre! When we got off the train, we realized that we were going to have a nice hike ahead of us to get into Corniglia’s city centre. Corniglia is the only of the five towns that is not on the water, and it is actually set 100 meters above sea level. This means 33 flights and 382 steps later we were finally at the top! Don’t let this scare you away, because the views of the sea from that high up are UNREAL! We just don’t recommend staying here to explore the Cinque Terre. The first store we walked in was offering fresh lemon slushies and we had to get one! It was soooo delicious, tangy and a little bit sweet and I still dream of these on a hot summer day! We kept following the stairs through the city, up and up until we came to an overlook where all you could see was the water and sat there admiring the views (also while catching our breath). It was such a warm day, so we grabbed some gelato (duh) and began our decent back to the train station!
When we arrived back in Vernazza we were exhausted, so we scouted out a local restaurant that did to-go pizzas. We took our pizza and limonata back to our airbnb and called it a day, complete with watching Spongebob in bed!
