The Hixson Holiday Headlines: Cinque Terre, Italy

Cinque Terre, Italy Thursday, February 6, 2020

Cinque Terre is the California Route 1 in Italy. The vistas are STUNNING!

Larry and I started our day out maneuvering through La Spezia trusting that our GPS would take us on the quickest route to our destination. We had the most incredibly, thrilling ride up the mountain we have ever had. First, the road turned into a one lane mass of hairpin turns. We must have gone through two dozen S turns in a matter of five minutes. Luckily, we came up on only two cars going down the mountainside during the trip up to the top. Wheeeee!

We made it to the entrance of the Cinque Terre National Park.

High cliffs looked over the Mediterranean Sea while hillside were layered with rock terraces.

The views were breathtaking. With this picture perfect clear day you could see for miles.

The road was very curvy with tunnels and lots of guard railing.
Cinque Terre is made up of five little villages that sit on the edge of high cliffs overlooking the Mediterranean. Numerous walking trails meander across the rocky mountainsides. Traditionally a very poor area, Cinque Terre became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997. The villages have maintained an authentic charm of yesteryear drawing a large tourist trade.

We enjoyed capturing pictures of the first town, Riomaggiore, from on top of the mountain. It was a colorful sight in the midday sun.

Riomaggiore

We drove over the curvy little road up and down the mountainsides until we came to the second village, Manarola.

Manarola

We parked the car outside of the village(driving in the villages is not allowed except for delivery vehicles) and hiked about ten minutes to the entrance. Manarola had a scenic river flowing from the mountain through the village.

Cool looking bridges passed over the river making our walk very interesting.

Our walk was constantly down, down, down....meaning the hike back up gave our tickers a workout.

We were happy to find that the village was very quiet. We practically had it to ourselves. Although a few places were open, most of the shops and restaurants had signs stating “ Closed till March”. We were thrilled that we had planned to come here without a lot of other tourists.

Manarola was full of all kinds of gorgeous scenery.

One of the local shops displaying wares.

Stairs are everywhere.

A narrow street led the way through the village while....

Pathways twisted throughout the stacked buildings.

Lemon trees dotted the hillsides.

We walked all the way to the sea before heading back up the mountain to our car.

Rock walls are everywhere. For centuries farmers carried the rocks out of the fields to make the walls in the villages and the terraces.

We followed the river on the opposite side up the mountain.

Larry enjoys all the foreign designs.....this mini pick up is perfect for this area.

We passed several villages in the higher elevations.

Olive groves covered the mountainsides.

Along side the road there were numerous roller coaster type devises to put supplies, luggage, and other needs on to transport down or up the mountain to a persons home. It was interesting that the driver rode it backwards down the mountain. That had to be a thrill.

This is just a small example of the roads we traveled all day long.

The turn off to Corniglia led us to a very, very narrow, one lane road that surpassed anything that we had been traveling on all day. There were times that we had to back up and hold our breath as another car squeezed between a guardrail and our car hoping they would make it through. It was a wild crazy drive maneuvering down this skinny little drive. We stopped on the hillside to park our car and hiked into Corniglia, the middle village.