We had a wake up call for 6.01am and a full room service breakfast because we had to be ready at 7.20 for the day's excursion to Cinque Terre (which I keep mispronouncing as if it was French not Italian). The breakfast arrived just after 6am and we managed to eat a full breakfast although space was a bit tight on our smallish table.

We then went to the lounge by 7 .20am for our 7.30am departure. The system works well because we were able to leave in a group with all our party (Trish and Rex were on the same tour) so we could all be in the same coach. The weather was not good but we were told it would improve. On board we were given a map of the area and emergency numbers we could ring if we got lost etc.

The tour guide, Irene (pronounced 'Erenie’) was excellent. The cruise boat had berthed at Liverno, a big commercial port. She told us it was set up by the Medici family when the Pisa port was silting up. Because they wanted it to develop, they welcomed all nationalities and it had the had a very big Jewish population.

We were given a lot of general information. You need at least 3 varieties of olives to blend to get the best olive oil. The area is known for marble and alabaster and some of the mountains are quite hollow because of the mining. Lemoncello comes from the Amalfi area but Lemonchino comes from this area although they are much the same . We could also see Pisa from a distance in the gloom as it was quite cloudy.

By the time we arrived at the city near the villages (La Spezia) the weather was a lot better. This city has a big military base. Irene told us that it had a lot of new buildings in the Fascist era that can be recognised because they are square boxes with big windows. Inside all of them are hidden stairways. She told us she had had a meeting in one of these buildings and got lost. All she could find were stairs to and from the ground floor to the first floor. She finally found someone who could help and the stairs to the next floor were behind a door that looked like another office door.

We also heard about Lord Byron, who stayed in this area often. He couldn’t swim, although Keats often tried to teach him, and was afraid of drowning. Allegedly he had a bad dream one night about drowning and the next day he and the others on his boat all drowned. After his body was found a number of days later it was cremated but his heart survived and his wife carried it with her for the rest of her life .

The 5 villages of the Cinque Terre are all built on rivers and have gothic 14th century churches. For many years they were isolated even from each other and developed their own dialects. When the first coastal train track was put in it didn’t stop at the villages. In 1925 a second track was put in and the locals gave voluntary help to get it completed. At this stage the 3 hour trip from one to the next was reduced to 5 minutes.

The villages all began on the top of the cliffs because of the danger of pirates. In some the homes had 2 doors with one higher up the cliffs to escape from them. The homes at the bottom are newer as they were not built until the danger of pirates had passed. Now there are restrictions on house colours to keep the villages traditional.  

The villages were all on cliffs where every square metre of land was precious. The area is twinned with the Great Wall of China because the dry stone walls that cover the hills are equal in total length to the Great Wall, The shortage of land has made it difficult to provide graves . Instead the caskets are stacked vertically, often at the top of the hills.

We had the various monorails pointed out. These are usually for one person and have space for the crop, usually grapes, in a cart. They go up relatively slowly but down quickly and backwards. They reckon the ride is better than any roller coaster

The coach took us to the second village from the south, Manarola. We parked near the top and walked down. It had clearly been raining as the car roofs were all wet and there were puddles on the ground, but the sun was shining. We visited the church, which was very nice, and walked down to the marina. the houses and shops usually had a boat on the road outside in the way we might park a car.

We liked a mosaic here. It had various birds and fish, in different stones and marble. We took a number of photos but they don’t really do it justice.

At this stage we walked to the first village, Riomaggiore . It has a bigger river and this used to be used to run a water wheel to grind maize. The track is called ‘the Way of Love’ and is about 900m. It was built when they were building the 2nd track and the last part was blasted through. If a couple from the neighbouring villages were courting they would meet in the middle and hence the name. There was a seat in the middle on which it is now a tradition for a couple to sit and have their photo taken. There are a huge number of padlocks on the walkway – a sign of commitment for a couple to leave a padlock there and discard the key. However, Irene did point out that some had combination locks!!

The views were amazing. The sea was very blue and clear and the cliffs sheer. There were three coach groups for the cruiseship doing this trip and we passed one other group having a geology lesson. There were layers in the rock like as at Punakiki but these were folded vertically where the plates met and had twisted over billions of years.

This village had a nice mural which honoured the ordinary people’ who lived there and worked on the grape harvests . They were all shown with muscular arms and legs. We then went through a tunnel with another mural, this with more of a 3D effect. The local villagers had contributed to its construction. Irene said her friends’ family had provided some tiles that were the same as those they had used in their bathroom.

We made our way through the village to what passed here for the wharf. This village had a small beach area which was being used, although there was a heavy swell. This made getting onto the boat a challenge. The gangplank was put onto the concrete wharf and held as best the crew could but it moved a lot in the swell. It was a matter of getting on to the gangway as quickly as possible and off into the boat quickly but no so quickly that you fell over. As there was a step down into the boat this was not easy and not my favourite part of the trip. We had not gone for more than a minute when someone was sick, although John and I were absolutely fine. The views back to the village were postcard pretty and wonderful . The houses tumble down the hillside and made a patchwork of colour.

It was much easier to get off the boat as the swell was less when we arrived in the 2nd village from the north, Vernazza. We had seen Manarola and also Corniglia (the middle village) from the water but the boat didn’t stop there. This was the biggest of the villages we went to. It had a big beach and a number of cafes of various types. We had over 3 hours here to have lunch and then look around. We had pizza in a small place and shared the table with some other New Zealanders from Auckland who were on the 2nd part of their cruise. They recommended doing Ephesus in the morning and said they had heard people were disappointed with how much of Etna they could see although I am not sure which Etna tour they were on.

John and I then used the Internet here for about 20 minutes, paying at a café but sitting on steps to use the wifi. Thank you to all for the birthday greetings which I was able to get on the day . The other New Zealanders had told us they had taken various drinks from the shore onto the boat so we bought a bottle each of lemonchino and wine as well as a corkscrew and a couple of souvenirs. By this time it was close to the meeting time so just enough time for me to get a gelato. Then Irene took us up to catch the train which she said would stop either twice or 4 times depending on whether we ended up on the late train or the correct one,

Le Spezia was not as attractive close-up but we only saw the bit from the station to the bus and then the drive out of the city. We had a better view of Pisa on the way back and also saw views of villages in the hills. When we arrived at the ship we were greeted with cold towels and then had our bags scanned. We had tea in the main dining room again and again the service and food were very good.

Philip and Anna had been to Sienna and had had a wine tasting. They told us all about this but were a bit annoyed because they had been told they could not bring wine back to the ship to use on board. There was one wine that Anna especially liked so was disappointed to find that others in the party had had no trouble getting it onboard. However, this was only a small grizzle in what had been a wonderful day for them as well.