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The Cinque Terre is a rugged portion of coast on the Italian Riviera. "The Five Lands" comprises five villages: Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore. The coastline, the five villages, and the surrounding hillsides are all part of the Cinque Terre National Park and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Over centuries, people have carefully built terraces on the rugged, steep landscape right up to the cliffs that overlook the sea. It's a very popular tourist destination and, as I discovered last night, cars cannot reach it from the outside (instead we had to park up anywhere we could fit the car on those narrow roads and walk a short way into the village). Paths, trains and boats connect the villages, but most people come here to hike some or all of the 9kms between the first and last village (ourselves included). We set out from the southern-most village of Riomaggiore.

The first part of the hike to the second village is a nice easy 20-minute stroll. It seems the thing to do along here is leave your name all over the walls...		Leave a love padlock anywhere you can fit it to symbolise you and your significant other's love for each other (which then becomes quite rusty and gross, much like the relationship by that stage probably hehe)...

Vandalise the local plant life with your initials...		Take cheesy photos...		And mind your head on more of those padlocks.

We arrived at the second village of Manarola, and had to catch a train from there to the third village of Corniglia due the path being closed for whatever reason between those two. We ducked into a restaurant in town to grab some lunch (more seafood and a hungry cat staring up at me) just as it started raining.

The rain didn't last long but the path started to get pretty interesting from this point on and the rain made it quite slippery underfoot. Nevertheless it was bloody fun! And it had everything from dirt and mud, big rocks, steep steps - it was brilliant! There are plenty of other folk hiking in both directions, and some were coping with the conditions better than others hehe.

It even had some random cats!		I was loving it but I was gagging for the bike!		Yeah, you could ride that shit no worries!

The Cinque Terre is very green and lush; I almost felt like I was in South America somewhere.		It also has the most amazing views! Too bad the weather wasn't as amazing. This is looking back at Corniglia with Manarola in the background.		And this is me trying to be artistic.

Just outside Corniglia.		The Texas duo hehe. Loving Kristina's t-shirt ;)

We battled on for about an hour and a half, and eventually made it to village number four: Vernazza (where we had dinner last night).				The last section of track to the fifth and final village of Monterosso was a two-hour hike and the most challenging. I would have been keen but unfortunately I had a plane to catch :(

We grabbed a quick drink and bite in town, and caught the train back to La Spezia where we were staying (nothing great there by the way).

I was flying back to Paris from Pisa, an hour's drive away according to Google Maps (and my GPS). We left our hotel just after 5pm, and my flight was at 7:15pm (though I had no luggage to check in so I had the best part of 90 minutes to get there). However, word to the wise: never underestimate rush-hour traffic in Italy! The roads are jammed, no one wants to let you into their lane, and it's horns ahoy! In fact another word to the wise: if you're not a confident driver or you're not willing to really assert yourself on the road, don't drive in Italy! Aggressive driving suits me fine but not when I've got a plane to catch. It took almost an hour just to reach the nearby motorway, during which time I also had to fuel up the hire car which was an ordeal in itself hahaha! The Italians seem to like automated gas stations, where you pre-pay for your fuel by feeding money into a machine. Well, this particular machine ate the my money and then broke down - I've got no idea what was wrong with it but I really had no time to hang around and find out, and so just had to take the hit for that and find a manned gas station elsewhere. Anyway, I screwed the bollocks off the poor little hire car (a Fiat Punto by the way - good size for the roads it got taken on) but it got to the point where I wasn't going to make it to the airport on time, and the only way I was going to make the flight was if it was delayed. It wasn't easyJet this time however, in fact it was worse - Ryanair, so my chances were good hehe. We eventually arrived and sure enough, delayed by 40 minutes! That gave me just enough time to make it through security, and through the gate with barely five minutes to spare. But the fun didn't stop there...

The Paris airport I was flying back into was Beauvais-Tillé, some 85kms north of the city (you gotta take what you can get when you plan these trips on a whim barely two weeks in advance hehe). The easiest way into Paris is by a 75-minute coach, no worries. Well 75 minutes on this thing came and went and we still weren't there, nor were we there by the 90-minute mark either, and folk on the bus were getting noticeably agitated. One guy walked up and had a word with the driver, then sat back down behind me and translated to his friend in English that the driver was bloody lost hahaha! It was nearing midnight by this stage, and I was tired and in no mood for this (and nor was anyone else apparently as they all started to give him some tips - I don't speak French but they were clearly unimpressed). By the time we eventually made it into Paris we'd been on the road for over 2.5 hours, it was after midnight and we all made a mad dash for the Metro before it shut down for the night. I walked through my door at 1am.

Anyway, all that drama aside, that was a friggin' sweet weekend! Lake Como is a great spot, the Cinque Terre is amazing, and ideally you'd want more than three days to fit all of that in and really make the most of it, but the taster was well worth it! :)

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