Sunday, May 8, 2011

Getting the Feel of Cinque Terre


Wednesday, March 23, 2011 (Part 6)

In Cinque Terre, we are staying at the Hotel Steno in the town of Monterosso al Mare. It is quite nice, and the proprietors (husband and wife) are extremely friendly and helpful. Our rooms are small but comfortable, and we have small balconies that look into the center of town and afford a view of the water.

The hotel is perched on a cliff, but then everything in these
seaside towns is perched on a cliff! There is a beautiful, albeit long, set of stairs that leads from the hotel, through a small grove of lemon trees and down to the main street of the town. It's lovely. There 136 steps to the main street, which we must climb every time we leave or return to the hotel!

We arrived in Cinque Terre relatively early - by about 2:30 p.m. So once we were settled in our rooms, we decided to check out the town. We walked from our hotel down the main street to the beach. There are several nice parks along the beach, and there are lots of places to sit -- which we did -- and catch some sun.

We then decided to take the train from our town -- the northern most of the five towns -- to Riomaggiore -- the southern most town. This is a 12 minute train ride and for most of the trip, we were in tunnels in the mountains between the towns.

Once in Riomaggiore, we walked around a bit and found our way to a vantage point looking out over this town's beach -- which isn't much of a "beach" at all! it was all rocks, and I mean rocks (not pebbles, but rocks). We were not very taken with this town. We like our own Monterosso much more.

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