Written by Rod

I had never heard of Cinque Terre (CT) before Leigh McLuskey described it to me. Hamish and I had been having a holiday with Leigh and Karyn in January, when we started talking travel. From that point CT was firmly on our to-do list.

We are staying in La Spezia, which is terrifically handy to CT. Belinda came up with several plans to arrange our family’s day out.

Plan A: We all go together and do a walk. Strike that, since it’s too hard for Hamish and Jess is not keen.

B: We all go in on the train (to Monterosso), Belinda and I walk to the next village (Vernazza), whilst Hamish and Jess potter, then catch a train to meet up in that village. Nope -too much time for Jess and Hamish to fill in.

C: Belinda and I go on our own. Forget it.

D: Don’t go at all. Really? Why did we even come here?

E: Belinda and I go in early, do the walk, then come back for a full family visit.

The alarm goes at 6:30. We have a bit of breakfast, then head for the station, which is a 5 minute walk away. It’s quiet as we easily purchase tickets for the 8:12 to Monterosso. Trenitalia seduces us when our train leaves exactly on time. The train is modern, clean and uncrowded. We congratulate ourselves for timing our run and arriving in the off-season.

The train trip is largely through tunnels (Italians love their tunnels), with occasional sea glimpses.

We arrive at Monterosso and the scene is sublime. Coast, beach, cafes, hills, sun and more ridiculous “roads”. Belinda thinks a trip to the toilet before the walk is a good idea, until she visits the “toilet”. It is a hole in the floor, with a foot-pad on either side. Totally devoid of toilet paper. Pass. (Hamish would love it.)

It is hard to know where to start, but we set off on the walking trail which connects to the next village, conscious that we need to get a train back to La Spezia, sooner or later. It’s cool and we are glad that we are not doing this walk in summer, as most tourists do.

The walk is stunning. The walk is challenging, with what seems like an endless chain of steps, then some very narrow sections with what could be vertical drops, though I am not keen to check. After a short while, there is a busker playing something on a saxophone. Charming. It’s humid and Belinda turns a shade of red resembling the much-cherished local tomatoes. It’s sweaty and there is no breeze. The track is very quiet and we are again pleased with our amazing planning.

It is hard to imagine that anybody could look at these cliffs plunging into the sea and declare “this is the place for a village”. Whoever did so was an inspired visionary/madman. But we are glad they did. It is out of this world. I am also pleased that they did not add one more village, since “Sei Terre” would not have quite the same ring. I mention this to Belinda along the way. She says “You are an idiot”; in the nicest possible way. The locals have not wasted any space and the hillsides along the walk are dotted with vineyards and vegetables. The region is renowned for its wines and one canny oenologist even has a nifty little advertising bay on his plot. If we see their wine, we will buy it.

After about 100 minutes we arrive in Vernazza. It’s another surreal experience in a very quiet village. We grab a coffee and share a “jam cake”, admiring the view and again admiring our timing.

We head to the station to return to La Spezia. The train is 10 minutes late, but that’s okay.

We grab Jess and Hamish and head back to the station. The queue to buy the two extra tickets is long (I knew I should have bought these earlier), and we miss the train (1:03) we aimed to catch, which leaves bang on time. Curse that Italian efficiency. Never mind, the next train is at 1:18.

We return to Monterosso, which is now very crowded. Don’t these people know it’s off season? We have lunch in a delightful restaurant over(looking) the beach. Whilst Belinda is finishing my wine, I take Hamish down to the beach, where he strips down to his speedos. It is a gorgeous day.

The beach is gritty, then pebbly, as we get closer to the shore. I have to carry my little cream puff over the pebbles to get to the shore. He can’t stand in the water, cause it’s cold. It isn’t.

He just gets his feet wet when, of course, he tells me he needs to do a poo. Hamish’s poos come on quickly, with a small window of opportunity for success. I think I let out an audible obscenity as I quickly pick him up and charge back over the pebbles. We hastily walk back through the restaurant to the toilet. I hope they recognise me as a (very) recent customer (Belinda has just finished my wine), since they do not want any passers-by jamming up their precious WC. We get past reception and thankfully the (single unisex) toilet is free. I won’t go into further detail, dear reader, other than to say we barely made it. Phew.

Back to the beach for some Frisbee and wading. Lovely.

We slowly walk back to the station, which is packed. Where have all these bloody tourists come from? We go to the wrong platform and then quickly dash back to the right one, just making the very crowded (standing room only) train.

We get off at Vernazzo, along with every other tourist currently in Italy. It takes us 20 minutes to move off the hopelessly inadequate platform. We shuffle through the horribly over-crowded village, stopping for Gelato. Why did we come here at such a busy tourist time, we wonder?

A quick look at some shops, when/where the foot traffic paused, before we return to the station. The train is late and there is virtually no room on the platform. We squeeze onto the train and are happy to arrive back at La Spezia.

It’s been a long and amazing day. Chianti beckons.