Trek the terre - Cinque Terre

We explored the architectural extravaganza that is Rome and Vatican and then had headed to the beautiful countryside of Tuscany and Umbria. Our last destination would be La Spezia to explore the coastal villages of Cinque Terre. We briefly stopped by Pisa to catch a glimpse of one among the many wonders of the world ( just because I think that there are more than 7 wonders) - The Leaning Tower of Pisa. We took the train to Pisa and had our luggage checked into the baggage area before an approximately 2.5 km walk to the Leaning Tower. We loved the fact that the trains in Italy were well maintained, be it regional, intercity, or the high speed Freccia trains. It was lunch time and we stopped by a restaurant where we fed ourselves on ravioli (yum!!), pasta and finished it off with a panacotta.

If you have visited the Leaning tower, you sure should have a souvenir to substantiate it - you have endless souvenir shopping choices along the road. Magnets, showpieces, caps, key chains, mugs - it is all there. Walking along the winding ways we made it to the tower and it really is LEANING!

Lanes leading to the leaning tower

During the construction of the tower, it is believed to have tilted because of the instability of the soil and flaws in laying out the foundation. The construction took place over 200 years accommodating the tilt into the architecture. You will be lucky if you can get one decent click of the tower because all around you have people posing for cameras trying to either support the tilt or pushing it to tilt further. (google up for images of the tower with people and you will know what I mean). It was fun watching the people in different poses with various expressions, imagining what the final pic would look like!

We spent a good two and half hours here before taking the train to La Spezia. Our host was kind enough to receive us at the station and drove us all the way to our stay which was on top of a hill. The accommodation and the view from the balcony was simply WOW! It was around 7 pm by the time we stepped out to explore the town of La Spezia - almost all shops were closed by then with the exception of few restaurants. After having a walk around the town, we made it to one of the heavily crowded restaurants - coz where there is a crowd, the food ought to be good! And boy, it was! Gnocchi, Pasta and the cutlets were simply good and the portions huge.

Exploring the town of La Spezia

We were done by 10 pm, and it was all the more colder. We alternated between running and walking back to the hill top house to keep ourselves warm. Looking forward to an exhilarating day at Cinque Terre the next day we made it to the hill top and to the cosy apartment.

As the sunset - view from the balcony

Night view from the Balcony

We began our next morning over a cup of tea enjoying the view from the balcony. Then we set out to the station to get the Cinque Terre pass. This pass covers the access to Cinque Terre national park, hiking trails, trains, bus shuttle. The hiking trails are in the national park, so it is mandatory to have the pass. There are check points on the trails where you’ll have to show the passes. I think you can buy the passes from the check points too. ( all the way more safer to but it at the station itself!)

Cinque means five and Terre means Land. Cinque Terre simply is the land of five ancient fishing villages – Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso. These coastlines and the surrounding village now form the Cinque Terre National Park and is also an UNESCO heritage site. We took a train along with hundreds of other tourists to Monterosso hoping to catch a good view of the coast line as the train sped by. We had to be disappointed on that since the tracks have been laid through the tunnels and we were mostly engulfed in darkness with occasional view of the sea.

Cinque Terre is a place you need to spend a whole day - start early to cover all the five villages and trekking is the ideal way to do it or you also have buses and trains connecting the villages. Monterosso is a village with a long beautiful coastline and a very colourful market area. This is the place you will get to taste the best focaccia of your life (never mind the copious amount of olive oil that goes into the baking).

Lots of bread to choose from!

We savoured a basil pesto focaccia.

The coastal line of Monterosso

The market area of Monterosso

Thirty minutes along the beach and after exploring the market, it was time to head to our next destination on foot under taking a relatively easy trek (that is what the internet said) to the next village, Vernazza. The trek took us nearly two hours and drained us off our energy! We began our trek by climbing up the mountain often faced by narrow trails which allowed only one person to navigate at a time and if there was anyone coming in the opposite direction we had to wait for them to cross or vice versa. Sometimes it was steep climb or sometimes steps cut out on rocks or even areas where part of the trails were washed off. Lemon trees bordered the trails at some points and at some points we had a beautiful view of the sea. Each turn and bend had breath-taking views. Please make sure you do at least one hike in Cinque Terre, else you miss out on these beautiful views. Our ascent took us about an hour and the next one hour of descent seemed a cakewalk. ( Whoever said the trail was easy must be a pro at this). There are actually different trails that you can take depending on the level of hardship. There are even trails for the extreme hiking enthusiasts.  Vernazza is probably the most beautiful place I have ever seen - I could hardly keep my eyes off the place. As you descent the mountain, there lies ahead of you a rocky cove with the gurgling tides hitting the rocks and then slowly making its way back into the sea. We could not ask for a better place to relax and enjoy our lunch. Friggitoria is a must try if you love seafood. Gather your food packets and head over to the dork, sit by the seaside and enjoy your food. I could sit there all day but we had an agenda to complete.

The churning sea waters!

That is me making my way across the narrow trekking path

View of the beautiful Vernazza from the trekking trail

The lemon trees that grow along the trail

A closer shot of Vernazza

More closer to Vernazza

The colorful village that is Vernazza

This time we took the train to Corniglia.

Corniglia unlike the other villages is not situated by the sea rather on top of a mountain by the sea. You have a sea view but not access to a beach. If you want to avoid the very long climb to the village from the station, there are buses shuttling at regular intervals. This place has more of gelato, slushy and granita available. Choose your flavor before you head out to the next place.

We chose lemon and had it not been for this refreshing cold granita, I would have never reached the next village. 

We debated a lot on whether to take the next trek or not! After all, we were here for a good trekking experience and this was the easiest trek as per google and hence we decided to go ahead. We were expecting an hour's trek that eventually ran into 3 hours .The trail runs through Volastra enroute Manrola. We climbed up, was out of breath, sat down, climbed again. Into an hour we met a couple coming in the opposite direction and asked them how much more longer and they said one hour. We walked along through dense tree areas, by vineyards, by the seaside. We trekked one mountain after other distraught that the next village was not yet in sight. It took 3 long hours and we finally made it. The last bit had about a thousand steps to descend. Our legs were wobbly by the time we reached Manarola. We did have a strong feeling that we missed our way but we do not remember seeing any signboards to direct us. Thank God for the refreshing granita that kept our spirits alive. The first trail we undertook in the morning was buzzing with tourists whereas this one had only few people we came across once a while making it difficult to ask for directions and GPS is not an option in these areas. We walked across the village - Manarola, rested our weary legs, snacking on Farinata (pancakes made of chickpea flour).

The sea never fails to impress

The long trek to Manarola - we were not even half way through!

The view of sunset taken from Manarola station

Munching on a slice of Farinata

Stroll through Manarola

It was getting darker and we decided, we had no time for the last village, Rio Maggiore. We had to make it back to La Spezia which was just 5 minutes by train but the harder task of making our way to the hilltop apartment also had to be accomplished. We were tired, yet we had with us an entirely exhilarating experience to take back with us.  A word of caution to everyone who wants to visit Cinque Terre - not all the trekking paths are open to public. Sometimes the trails are washed out due to rains and hence always inquire before you set out on your trek.

We were up very early the next day to catch the 6 am train to Milan. This was one morning where I would have loved to stay in bed and sleep more into the cold morning. Milan was from where we had our return flight. Our legs were stiff and the knees refused to budge but we made it to the station on time. We mostly slept through the train journey.  Reaching Milan, we checked our luggage into the luggage deposit area and decided to take a stroll through Milan. Being a Sunday, almost everything was closed. On contrary to Rome, Milan seemed a more planned city with wider roads and better traffic rules. There are no words to explain the churches in Italy, the architecture keeps getting prettier and fashion capital Milan was no less. We reached Piazza del Duomo nearby hoping to eat from the famous – Luini’s. Alas! being a sunday it was closed. That was so disappointing! and then we had to settle in for a Pizza Fritta - which is basically deep fried pizza or calzone. We almost burned our tongues when we bit into the hot Fritta, fresh from the deep fryer, but it was so good with all the meat and the gooey cheese inside. We sat by the piazza, although it was mid afternoon the weather was beautiful and enjoyed a parade of people decked in various costumes pass by, accompanied by a band.  The Milan Cathedral is a must visit. Unfortunately we were running short of time and the queue was way too long for us. We had to be satisfied with an external glimpse.

Inside view of a beautiful cathedral in Milan

The Milan Cathedral

We headed back to Milan Centrale station and took our final train to the Milan Malpense airport. There we had reached the end of our vacation! If all the good times could be a wee bit longer!

When you travel somewhere your vacation begins right at the time when you board the flight but after the vacation when you head back there is always an ache that you carry. With a sad heart and memories of days well spent we headed back to Dubai and here in this blog we relived our vacation again!!

Check out the complete Italy Travelogue on our site -

Italy-cised
Roaming Rome and Walking the Vatican
A countryside Escapade - Tuscany and Umbria 

Italy-cised

Walk across the Tiber

I am not sure when the idea of travel blogging became a part of our vacation planning but now, it has become so embedded in us that everything we do and see needs to get immortalized ( too grand a word right!!) here. Visiting Italy was something we had on our minds since 2015 - somehow things never fell in place - it was either that it coincided with our India trip plans or finances never fell in place or our visa was getting renewed - something always ensured that our plans went down the drain. Everything did fit into the puzzle last month and our long awaited Italy trip was planned, executed and we are now reveling the glory. Oh, we are finally ‘Italy-cised’, that is our way of expressing our happiness in ultimately touring Italy. Well, it doesn’t mean that we toured the whole of Italy, we were able to fit in as much we could without rushing, and giving time to take in the fragrance of the blossoms.

Italy is adorned by beautiful historic churches and other monuments

Our trip was just for a week but we could go on about our experiences - a single write up would be gross injustice to the trip and hence we have decided to break it up into parts and take you on a photo journey that could well describe our travel episodes.

Segment 1 - Italy-cised :We attempt to illustrate our planning, itinerary, provide tips, general        occurrences and insights into some amazing food.

Segment 2 - Roaming the Rome and Walking the Vatican : Our experiences on roaming Rome by   foot and the tour through Vatican

Segment 3 - Escapade to the countryside - Tuscany and Umbria : We take you a photo journey through the beautiful country side

Segment 4 - Trek the terre - Cinque Terre(pronounced ‘Cheenqui’ Terre, which means 5 lands): Recounting our trekking experiences in Cinque Terre along with glimpses of our stop at Pisa and Milan

For a country like Italy with a long Mediterranean coastline, bountiful countryside and renaissance masterpieces, no research proved worthy enough. Nevertheless, our main resort were the beautifully written travel blogs that virtually guided us through the Italian streets onto the beautiful piazzas that helped shape our itinerary including all that we wanted into an 8 day plan. The tips provided by the bloggers were in reality quite helpful. A simple example would be the repeated requests by many bloggers to join the queue at the Palantine hills and Roma Forum to see the Colosseum than join the never ending queue at Colosseum which will in turn take you to Roma Forum and Palantine Hill. If it wasn't for this piece of advice we would have ended up at the long queue at Colosseum whereas the queue at Roma Forum was quite short that enabled us a quick entry.

Piazza Venezia

The ruins

A fountain welcomes you at every piazza

Every Piazza has a church too!

Accommodation

Once you have decided on your places of visit, lay down your itinerary, get your travel reservations done, book your accommodation and apply for the visa. We chose airbnb and agriturismo websites for our stay bookings. Once you zero in on the location you want to stay, airbnb gives you a range of options to choose from - whether you want a shared room, a private room or an independent house along with the price ranges and photos of the stay. These stays are cheaper than the hotel stays and also you get to interact with the locals at a personal level.  If you are not sure of your place of stay and want to have the flexibility of cancelling it later - choose the accommodation that has flexible cancellation policy. Moderate and strict cancellation policy accommodation levy some amount as airbnb service fee on cancellation (Make sure you read and understand the cancellation policy). Yeah, we failed to read it well and did lose a couple of Dirhams :(  Agriturismo offers great farm stays in the beautiful Italian country side. If you want to stay away from the hush and rush of city life then head over to agriturismo to survey your options.  If public transport is your means of commute, always look for places where public transportation is easily accessible. Interact with your host even before your travel and establish a good bond that way you would get to live the life of a true local.

An upmarket area at the Spanish steps

Glimpse of St Peters Basilica

Things to carry

Make sure you check the weather forecast so you know what clothes to carry along with you. We did commit a huge blunder in that assessment of ours. Italy was colder than we thought it to be. Italian weather on average hits 12 to 15 degree centigrade through the month of April. We had situations where the temperature dipped to 7 degrees and I refused to step out of the car as my teeth kept chattering the moment I got out. My clothes were a little too thin for the weather, I learnt my lesson and I sure am going to take more of winter clothes the next time we plan to travel in the cold season. Travel as light as you possibly can, you may have to lug the luggage across streets, cobbled paths and may be even hill tops. So be prepared for the eventuality. Ensure that you have all your travel documents securely kept. If you are not comfortable carrying it around, have photocopies of it and the originals safe at your accommodation.

Our Itinerary

After several additions, cancellations and re-additions our itinerary looked as below -

Day 1 - Reach Rome and check into our accommodation.
Day 2 - Tour Rome
Day 3 - Roam Vatican
Day 4 - Take a train to Florence. Rent a car and drive to our stay in Tuscany
Day 5 - Explore Tuscany
Day 6 - Travel to Umbria and take cooking class
Day 7 - Train to La Spezia. Stop by Pisa.
Day 8 - Trek the Cinque Terre
Day 9 - Explore Milan in 4 hours. Take the return flight

Initially, we also wanted to spend a couple of days in Milan visiting Lake Como, Bellagio, Varenna and also wanted to take  the Bernina Express a.k.a the Little Red Train from Tirano (near Milan) to Chur (in Switzerland) which will take you through the breathtaking Swiss Alps, but due to time constraints, decided to save it for another time. That’s how we ended up returning from Milan, in case you were wondering.

Along the Trastevere

Drive through the countryside

Advance Bookings

We also did advance booking for the Colosseum entry here and also booked a guided tour of the Vatican through Viator. We regretted not having booked a guided tour for the Colosseum. Even if you are not into architecture, ruins or paintings, Rome is a city which will make you fall in love with it. Just like we did. We were never into architecture and our only idea for visiting Rome was just to see the so called famous ruins and buildings. In fact we were less excited about the Rome part of the trip. But today without doubt we can tell you that was the best part of our trip. We loved our walk through the ruins and the churches and we just fell in love with history. We would definitely recommend booking a guided tour of both the Colosseum and Vatican.

Getting around Italy

Rome definitely was not built in a day but surely can be conquered on foot that is if you are willing to walk! So forget renting a car in Rome - parking and driving can get a little messy. We saw vehicles moving in both directions on a single lane. We saw red lights being skipped and vehicles stopping for green lights and God alone knows how the owners managed to move the parked cars which seemed to be neatly wedged in between two cars without even an ounce of space in between. However, they were always patient for the crossing pedestrians.

Download a metro map of Rome and it can get you almost anywhere. If not there are buses, the tickets for which can be brought from a Newspaper kiosk which is around every corner or you can also find them in the shops selling Tobacco ( always has T sign easy to recognize). It costs 1.50 euros a person and valid for 100 minutes from the time it is first punched. To move from one city to another there are trains available at frequent intervals. You could save a dime or may be two by pre booking on certain trains like the frecciarossa or frecciabianca (fast trains). Advance booking can also be done for inter city trains, however you do not have reserved seats, but that is okay as there are plenty of seats available. Intercity and regional train tickets need to be punched/validated at the slots on the platforms before entering the train. However the speed trains do not require punching and the ticket collectors would check it once you are in the train. At the platform, you have ticket kiosks that help you book - I found it interesting that you need not tender the exact amount while booking - the machine gives you back the exact change ( I loved the 'clunk clunk' noise of the change dropping). So book your tickets, search for your platform number on the digital display boards and head over to the right platform.

Our companion touring the countryside - rental car

If you plan to explore the country side, renting a car is highly recommended. We highly endorse renting a car to explore the countryside as the scenery is spectacular. We researched, chose Hertz through Autoeurope and did the pre-booking. We compared the fares between autoeurope.com(which takes you to the US website) with autoeurope.eu. Autoeurope.eu got us a better fare. Always go with renowned rental agencies like Hertz, Europcar as they are spread out across multiple locations. Do not go with the cheaper options out there, as reviews aren’t as good. Booking through Hertz was a breeze.


Beware of pickpockets

You will have warning signs displayed almost everywhere. We made sure we had each other’s back. We carried backpacks and had our wallets and mobiles safely tucked in the interior pockets and ensured that we never left the bags unattended even the suitcases. One incident, which I assumed was an attempt at pick pocketing was at one of stations when a woman came over to us incessantly spoke in Italian asking us something pointing to her ticket. Even when we spoke English, she did not step away. At that moment, I felt a group of people gather around us and felt a tug at my bag, I swirled around, removed my bag and hugged it. One in the group, spoke in Italian seemingly helping the woman with the ticket and they eventually moved away from us. For all I know, I could be wrong, it would have been a genuine case but I learnt my lesson of possible ways a person distracts you and someone using the distraction to pick something out of your bag. Dad and Mom had given incidents about pick pockets that happened during their group tour, so we were always on the lookout!

Learning Italian

Learning a few Italian words can go a long way. Despite being a tourist country most of the folks knew very little English, so it gets quite hard to communicate. We often had to end up using sign language to communicate. At Perugia, a very sweet old man desperately wanted to help us when we wanted help with directions, all we knew was English and all he knew was Italian. He tried his best explaining in Italian and Shibin happily nodded away not understanding a word of it for almost 10 minutes, not wanting to let him down.

Get a SIM card! 

Our biggest saving grace was an Italian SIM card that we bought on the first day which gave us gave us internet access, so google was always a click away. The telecom companies do have special SIM cards for tourists that are activated on purchase, one of the cheapest service provider is TIM which we purchased for 20 Euros which had a data package of 10 GB and around 1000 mins of local calls.
 (cheaper plans could be out there) Absolutely never buy the SIM from the airport, they charge you a hefty price!! 120 euros was the cost they demanded at the airport for the SIM!

Drinking Water

Carry water bottles with you. In Rome there are plenty of springs available where you can refill water, rather than having to pay for mineral water bottles which definitely does not come any cheaper. Pizza, pasta, gelato, bread, Panini - you have heard it all but this is where you get to try the Originals. The ones available across the globe have often been revamped to suit the regional flavors. The true Italian pizza has just a combination of 2 to 3 flavors maximum topped with cheese but definitely not a humongous amount of it. The crust is much lighter and often browned at the sides rather than the whole white bases that is available elsewhere.

Food

Most of the places provide a basket of bread to go with the wine. This is not accompanied by olive oil or balsamic vinegar which apparently isn't Italian tradition but more of an updated version of the Italian food. The bread often comes with a hard crust - yeah yeah! Apparently that is the authentic bread, not the soft ones that we have from the bakers here. It can scar the roof of your mouth! Ouch!  Do not forget to try the ricotta cheese and the pecorino. I am in love with ricotta! Certain aged cheese could be too strong for your senses.
Pecorino goes absolutely well with honey!!

Focaccia is a must try in Cinque Terre - the freshly baked ones just out of the oven forms a lovely breakfast - have the ones topped with pesto; simply fabulous.  Pasta, ravioli, spaghetti - we dug our hands into all what we possibly could.

Every corner you turn to, you are sure to find a gelato place - try their amazing flavors. Gelato usually comes in two kinds - the fruit based ones and the milk based ones in either cone or cup and in different sizes. We always went in for two flavors in our cup or cone - I cannot pin point a single flavor and say it was good. All the 10 flavors we had were good and I cannot possibly single out one.
(we did try 10 flavors!) You could pick your food and have it on the go instead of having it in a restaurant and every piazza has a fountain and some steps too were you can rest your legs and enjoy your food. This way you do not lose time for exploring and you get to eat too.  If you see an amount charged on your restaurant bill as Coperto - do not be in for a shock it is nothing you ate. It is simply the tip they charge, saves you time having to think about how much to tip.

The beauty of Cinque Terre

With these tidbits, we are signing off on Italy-cised till we meet again Roaming the Rome and Walking the Vatican.

Please feel free to leave in your experiences during your travel in the comments below.

-Ria & Shibin