The trip to Cinque Terre is entirely for the five-hour hike that hugs the coastline and took us from the water’s edge to cliffs high above the sea, and then back down again as we passed through the five small towns. Cinque Terre is unapologetically spectacular. Some backpackers I meet scoff at the tourist beat – and Cinque Terre is definitely on the tourist beat, but to miss this gem would just be an atrocity. Even Helen loved Cinque Terre and she shuns the sun with full on red-headed fear that simply cannot be understood if you’re not of the “instantly-burn” variety.

We picked out the cheapest hostel we could find (Cinque Terre Holidays – and it was quite decent actually and even had handy lockers for our laptops if you have your own lock…which we did!) and decided to annoy the other hostelers in our dorm by waking up by 7:30am so that we could make it through the bulk of the hike in the cool morning hours. The only set-back to our plan was the fact that the blasted trains don’t run to Monterosso, our chosen start point, at that time in the morning! The Cinque Terre hike is designed so that avid hikers can do the whole run from the first town to the last in five hours – and those who want to enjoy the spectacular views without the actual strenuous hike can stick to the first two hours. The last hour and a half is hard and we initially intended to train it to the first town and hike the hard part in the morning. The only snafu – we sat on a bench in our morning stupor for at least a half hour before checking the time-table to realize that a train wasn’t coming for another hour!

So instead of the original plan we started from Riomaggiore along the strolling part of the hike. But there were no worries in that regard because there just isn’t a bad part of the hike. The path hugs along the cliff edge and nearly every time we turned a corner for a new vista our mouths hung agape.

One of the best parts of the hike is coming up on one of the little towns – we would literally emerge, panting, from between some trees and a little Italian town with colorful stacked houses was perched in an inlet with boats bobbing in a nearby harbor. There is just something compelling about Italian architecture – it’s not so much the style of the houses but the color really – it’s just so Mediterranean and exotic. It seems as though every cookie-cutter suburb in the US is trying to duplicate this look – and failing miserably! Without the sparkling blue sea or the rolling grape fields something about it is just not right, I tell you, it’s just not right.

I haven’t hid from you guys my feelings toward hiking – love/hate – but there is simply nothing to hate about the hike. Once we made it through to the fourth town we had the last and hardest part of the hike ahead of us –an hour and a quarter hike from Vernazza to Monterosso. By now it was about 10:30am and there was only one thing on all three of our minds…gelato!

I had one of the best gelatos of my life –and it wasn’t even one of my favorite flavors! Because the day was shaping up to be a scorcher we all opted for one of the icy flavors versus the creamier gelatos –the Limone was so good that I, in fact, take a moment of silence in my memory right now as I write this. As a tip for anyone heading on this same Cinque Terre hike – the gelato shop is un-missable and directly in front of you as you step into the town of Vernazza from the south trail entrance…truly worth a visit.

Fortified by the gelato we headed onward to tackle the very vertical part of the hike – from Vernazza to Monterosso. This is BY FAR the hardest part and we were all doing some impressive huffing and puffing along the route. About 40 minutes in I was nearly losing the will to continue (it was hot!) when another hiker coming from the other direction noticed my delightfully attractive splotchy red face and gave me the best news of the day –it was all down hill from here!

Walking into Monterosso’s bay with a white sandy beach sent up little squeals of glee as we stripped down to our bathing suits and jumped into the icy cold waters of the Ligurian Sea. After  a hike like that we feasted and rewarded ourselves with another gelato (nocciola, hazelnut this time…hey, I said I didn’t plan to show self control!).

Then we jumped onto the local train to head back to Riomaggiore to relax for the rest of the day. Internet in this town is wicked expensive and hard to find so I was glad that we were heading onward to Florence the next day to a hotel with some rampant wifi – that fact warmed my little technology-addicted heart.