Photo Journal // Cinque Terre
Cinque Terre is a stunningly beautiful place, filled with colorful homes, crooked stairs, and startlingly aqua waters. I’ve focused this post on a few of our favorite photos, as there are already hundreds of blog posts out there on Cinque Terre (see here and here, and the official CinqueTerre.eu guide), but included a few tips at the end in case some of them are helpful!
Monterosso al Mare
Vernazza
Corniglia
Riomaggiore
Manarola
Tips for Visiting Cinque Terre
There are so many ways to “do Cinque Terre.” Lots of people hike, lots of people don’t. Some prefer exploring the cute shops, while others are swimming in the harbors. Spend as much time as you think you’ll need (for us, it would be 1-2 days), but definitely visit! It’s so beautiful.
Speaking of visiting, Cinque Terre is not too hard to get to from other Italian cities. There local station is in La Spezia, and from there you can take the local train up and down the coast.
Get a Day pass to take as many of the trains as you want. Unless you plan to hike 1-3 hours between each city, you’ll be glad you did this. The 5 cities dot the coast, so one train will take you south and another will take you north. The regional trains stop in every town (for most of the day).
Plan your day around where you want to watch the sunset. The sun sets over the water, throwing gorgeous pastels into the sky and highlighting the colorful fishermen’s houses. The most well-known places to watch the sunset are Riomaggiore and Monterosso, as they light up best. We watched it while eating at Nessun Dorma and loved it. Here are some other restaurant suggestions.
Corniglia is inconvenient to get to because you have to either hike up or take the bus, and the city is much less picturesque. Can definitely be skipped if you don’t have time.
Make sure to check the train schedule if you have a tight day like we did! The later it gets the more infrequently the trains run. We ended up having to take an express train from Riomaggiore all the way up to Monterosso, then the local train back down to Manarola because we missed the one from Riomaggiore to Manarola by a minute and the next one was an hour later.
