I began my third week of traveling this summer in Cinque Terre, which is the gorgeous string of five villages along the Italian Riviera.

(Between Rome and Cinque Terre I spent a weekend in Florence, but I don’t have much to say about it other than, if nothing else, its Uffizi gallery with its marvelous Botticelli paintings make a visit worth it.)

Cinque Terre is about wandering around and enjoying the sea. There isn’t a ton to do in the way of sightseeing, which makes it a relaxing respite after the busyness of Rome and other major Italian cities. In Cinque Terre if all you do is lounge around eating and sipping wine and looking at the water then you would have done it right.

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Of course there are many outdoor activities to do, and the mood of the villages change depending on the time of day, so three or four days in Cinque Terre would be ideal to experience its full range. However, if you only have 36 hours you can easily see all the villages and still have time to take it easy. I only had a day and a half myself, and I dare say I spent it perfectly and saw everything.

Day One

Afternoon arrival and lunch

On my first afternoon, I had a late lunch in Corniglia while waiting to check into my hostel. I ate at a place called Cecio’s with a view of the water far below and the slopes of vine-terraced hills. Pesto is everywhere in Cinque Terre, and Cecio’s pesto trofie did not disappoint— it was fresh and creamy and flavorful, and just what I needed after several hours of traveling from Florence.

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Corniglia lunch + the view from my hostel room

While I sipped a macchiato I ended up talking with a waiter who had been working there for 22 years. He told me that if I’d come any other year, half the people in Cinque Terre would be American tourists. But not this year of course. Nevertheless, Cinque Terre seemed fairly busy to me even with the pandemic, so I can’t imagine how crazy packed it is during a normal season.

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Corniglia

Soak in Manarola

Late afternoon, I took the train to Manarola. This is the most photogenic of the villages, and probably the image that comes up when you type “Cinque Terre” in Google. The town is made of colorful, blocky buildings that stack on top of each other and sprawl over a rocky cliff.

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It’s a perfect town to wander, stopping in shops and admiring the charm of the place: laundry hangs from windows, and down in the sea people sunbathe on rocks and swim among bobbing wooden boats.

Manarola

Dedicate your evening in Manarola to the sunset. I sat on a promenade on the other side of the bright blue inlet that looks directly on the village; if you go around the bend you can look out across the coast in the other direction, too.

Although I felt a little lonely watching the sunset by myself, the view made up for it. The houses were a warm spectrum of yellows and pinks, so that as the light turned buttery Manarola glowed rosy and golden and soft. The water, the rocks, the air itself became mellow and softly luminous. Once the sun dipped below the horizon, a perfect half-moon rose above the now-lavender sea.

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Day Two

Morning hike

A hike between two of the villages, even if it’s just an easy one-hour walk, is a must in Cinque Terre in order to make the most of its stunning landscape and coastal scenery.

On my first morning in Cinque Terre, I explored the cute center of Corniglia and shared breakfast at a café called Pan e Vin with a German girl from my hostel. Just before 10 p.m. I headed out to the coastal trail that connects Corniglia to Vernazza. It was a little over an hour’s hike through olive trees, dry forest, cacti, bamboo, and plenty of look-out points on the Mediterannean. Though it was a fairly easy hike, it was so hot that I was sweating buckets the entire time— and believe me when I say I have never used that expression in my life until this moment.

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Sunbathing and lunching in Vernazza

When I reached Vernazza I fell in love with it immediately. It is filled with this warm, happy, relaxed ambiance. I swam in the bay, the cool water delicious on my skin, and spent a couple hours reading on one of the flat rocks rising out of the water. Luckily there are little outdoor showers in Cinque Terre so it’s easy to wash off the saltwater before heading back into town. For lunch I had a buttery foccacia sandwich and glass of white wine at a table overlooking the water, and I couldn’t have been happier.

Visit the remaining two villages

Once I’d seen everything in Vernazza I took the train to explore the next village, Montessoro. It was pretty but I didn’t like it as much as the other towns. Plus its beaches were super crowded. Riomaggiore’s town wasn’t super enchanting either, but its beaches on the other hand were more relaxed. I headed there after Monterosso, taking the train all the way to the other end of the Cinque Terre.

I spent a little time on a rocky beach and then headed back to Riomaggiore’s little harbor and set up on a rock high above the water, watching people cliff jump from crazy heights.

Dinner and drinks

By early evening I had experienced all of the villages of Cinque Terre, but it never felt like I was rushing. The day passed long and leisurely. That night I ran into my German friend again on Corniglia’s main street and we had dinner together. After, we went to a bar together and chatted easily over limoncino spritzes.

The next morning I had a long breakfast on a café patio and waited for my train to Vicenza, sunkissed and already missing the sea.

Transport

All the villages in Cinque Terre are connected easily by train. It takes about five minutes or less to get from one village to the other, and costs 4 euros no matter how far you go. So if you want freedom to take as many trains as you want in a day I would recommend getting the train card for 16 euros, which gives you unlimited rides as well as the mandatory permit to access the hiking trails. The card also gets cheaper if you buy a 2, 3, or 4 day card, and it’s easy to buy the card from any train station.

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Monterosso street + Vernazza inlet

Lodging

I stayed in Corniglia, the very center village of Cinque Terre, at Ostello Corniglia. Corniglia positions you perfectly to explore two villages one day and the other two the next, and it is also much quieter than the other villages so it makes for a nice home base. I chose it because it happened to be the only village with a hostel, but if I return one day I would be more than happy to stay in Corniglia again.

Riomaggiore

As prices are expensive in Cinque Terre many people choose to stay in nearby La Spezia and take the train in— this wouldn’t be a bad option, but of course nothing beats the convenience of staying in Cinque Terre itself.

The feature that makes Corniglia so much quieter than the other four villages is that it sits very high up from the sea. It is accessible from the train station either from an endless staircase or by a shuttle bus.

Monterosso

Even with the coronavirus, when I arrived on a Monday afternoon there was a line for the shuttle bus. I ended up hiking up the stairs under the July sun with my heavy backpack. This was a terrible idea, but least I had beautiful views as I staggered miserably up each flight. I would do it again in a heartbeat, though, because Cinque Terre is so dreamy it is worth thousands of stairs.