Shining, Shimmering, Splendid

After a very last minute hostel booking, Emma, Jess and I set off to Le Cinque Terre via Portovenere via La Spezia for a couple of days.

Although it isn’t one of the Cinque Terre, Portovenere is pretty similar and just as beautiful. We stayed in the same hostel as Jenny, Lydia and I when we went in October, and got our own room. Always good seeing as we like to mess around and act like kids! In the evening we walked up to the end of the peninsula and to what’s left of Grotta Byron, (as in Lord Byron) and watched a lovely sunset over the sea. Seeing as we were by the sea we all went for seafood at dinner and then to a tiny little pub type restaurant in one of the many village backstreets for some coffee and cake before a fairly early night. Not before a few cheeky games of uno and shithead though…!

La Spezia

Early to bed, early to rise was our motto of the day on Good Friday, all ready with backpacks and trainers by 10am, ready to embark on our ‘Terre Trek’! First was the boat trip to Riomaggiore, the first of the five villages. As we got off the boat over glistening waters and into baking sunshine we realised all of the villages were indeed going to look exactly as they do on postcards, amazing. The only disadvantage was the number of other people doing exactly the same as us, something I’ve not really experienced yet seeing as our other trips haven’t been particularly touristy, or have been to bigger places where there’s more space, but I suppose it’s nice that people from all over the world are coming to appreciate the Cinque Terre National Park and the beauty of the coastline.

Portovenere

The paths between the second and fourth villages were unfortunately closed, which annoyingly meant we didn’t get to go to Manarola, (the second village) but did mean that we were definitely going to do the other two walks (between one and two, and four and five). The first is named ‘La via dell’amore’ and at certain points has lots of padlocks hung along the walls on wires, where couples or groups of friends have locked the padlock and (I think) thrown the keys away, symbolising their eternal love. We got the train from just outside Manarola to Corniglia, then had our first sweat inducing part of the day, a trek up 382 steps to get to the village. After more amazing views, wandering the pretty little streets and buying a few postcards we sat down for lunch and obviously, a few more card games!

Riomaggiore

Corniglia

Vernazza, the fourth village, had a bit more of a beach than the previous ones, but we didn’t stop long as we were keen to start the estimated 2 hour walk over the hills to Monterosso. It seemed as though we couldn’t go any further up every time the path levelled out from steps to flat for a while, but then there were more steps…and more…and more. The pain was worth it for the incredible views down onto the village and back along the coast that we had travelled thus far. And of course being the fools that we are we still had fun and giggles even when trekking up a massive hill! As soon as we saw the beach at Monterosso we got insanely giddy and almost ran parts of the way down. Ice cream was first on the agenda in the village, then a wander round. Just because we love other so much we ended up with some cute friendship bracelets to commemorate our trip :) and then found a bar serving sangria, to which we had to say yes! Due to lack of signs and the fact that the village is split between two bays separated by a tunnel, we missed the train back to La Spezia we’d planned to get, even after literally legging it to the station and platform only for Emma to touch the doors as the train started pulling away and then dissolving into fits of hysterical laughter, much to the bemusement of the other people on the platforms! So we had a while longer to wander along the seafront, get a sandwich and then get the train back.

Vernazza

Monterosso

An amazing, hilarious, fun-filled, eye-opening couple of days in one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. Wouldn’t have changed it for the world girls!

Spontaneity, Sunrise and Swimming

On Wednesday night we went on a mini bar crawl, after constantly feeling a bit of nostalgia for Newcastle times and reminiscing a lot. So much fun, and lots of strong cocktails were consumed, leading to hilarity all round, apart from the loss of Lydia’s phone and camera, to someone who now has lots of lovely pictures of Bologna from the beginning of the week. Lucky them, not so lucky Lydia L

Thursday morning brought headaches and pains as expected and deserved, but also an impulse trip away! After getting a phonecall from Jenny at 11.30am, we were on the 1.30pm train to La Spezia, swimming costumes packed. That morning, Lyds had found a great little hostel in Portovenere, a small village on the end of the peninsula south of La Spezia. We wondered whether reality would live up to expectations and website photographs, but as the bus turned the bend we got a full view of the nearest thing to heaven I could have wanted at the time!

At the very end of the rocky spit there is a church and the ruins of ‘Grotta Byron’, where Lord Byron spent lots of his time apparently. It’s got some great little doorways that just look straight out over the sea. After scaring ourselves with stone carvings of people in the shadows we sat down in a little pub for some wine and cake and Jen suggested we get up to watch the sunrise. Sounded like a lovely idea but I wasn’t sure whether we’d be able to drag ourselves out of bed after the night before…but, lo and behold, there we were at 6.30am, sat on the rocks looking out over the bay to the mountains beyond La Spezia. It was spectacular how the light changed and was so clear and vivid, making aeroplane trails look fluorescent pink and trees on the side of the island in front of us just silhouettes. By 8.30am the village was bathed in warm sunlight and it was time for breakfast.

Next was a coffee followed by a small hike up the side of the castello walls. Hideous amount of steps but the best views at the top! After that we went on the ‘Tre Isole’ boat trip, around Isola Palmaria, Isola Tino and Isola Tinetto, and then back on shore decided that if we couldn’t hire kayaks to go exploring we wanted to get in the water somehow, so swimming was on the agenda! We were so lucky with the weather; having the sun beating down and temperatures above 20 makes jumping into cold water a bit more bearable! The whole thing was so invigorating and refreshing and drying off in the sun made it feel like a mini summer holiday even though it’s October!

The whole trip has definitely made me want to travel more now, and we’re planning all sorts of little trips which hopefully will happen in the near future!