Cinque Terre, Italy

One summer morning my family and I took a train from Milan and went to Cinque Terre, in the Italian Riviera. Cinque Terre is an area with five (cinque) towns, Monterroso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore, joined together by a trail in the mountain and a local train. On our way there, our train passed the coastal city of Genova and some other smaller towns.

When we arrived we decided to walk to Vernazza from Monterosso al Mare, which is in fact the hardest trail to take, it is easier to take the trail in the opposite direction from Vernazza to Monterroso.

We got to Vernazza and we saw how beautiful the view was from the mountain and we went down to the town to rest from the 2 hour hike.

We sat down on a bench and bought some ice cream and admired the view. After resting we decided to get back to discovering the 4 other towns. We took a train all the way to Riomaggiore, we got to Riomaggiore and we took note that it was smaller than the rest but very peaceful, and so we stayed there for a while and sat near the sea and ate a few fruits we had bought at a store.

Next we took another train to Manarola where we sat down and watched people jump off of rocks and into the water. It was interesting to see how even strangers connected with each other and were happy.

We stayed in Manarola for a while, then we took a train to the last town we had to visit, Corniglia.

Corniglia was on the coast but high on the mountains, we walked through a never ending stair to Corniglia and ate crepes and drank some granita, which was a lemonade icee, but fresh squeezed.

We later went back to Monterosso al Mare where we stayed at a hotel for two days, we went in the sea and swam and we had fun.

It was really cool to see the similarities and differences of all the towns and how everyone of every culture came together and had fun with others.

written by Sofia