After a long drive we arrived in the town of Levanto in the Cinque Terre region. When we were here in 2008, we had camped in a town called Deiva Marina; the advantage of returning a second time was that we knew our Cinque Terre pass was valid for train travel only between Levanto and La Spezia which meant we didn't have to buy additional tickets like last time. The campsite was quite busy still despite it being almost the end of September. We stepped out of the car to warm air and were very glad we had decided to head south for a while – we could put our toques away!

We wandered into town, about a 20 minute walk from the campsite. Levanto was quite pretty and there was a great boulevard along the waterfront which we wandered along until the end. We made a gelato stop along the way and were glad to be in sandals once again. The water was nice and warm but we hadn’t brought our suits along; we decided that we would have a swim at some point while there. There were really neat houses which were mostly hotels along the waterfront and at the end of the boulevard there were tons of little boats all lined up on the sand. We walked out onto a pier for beautiful views of the town and boulevard. We walked up and around through some small streets and as we were walking back through the main part of town I spotted a vending machine selling milk! And not just any milk, you could also get raw milk which prompted Anoop to immediately buy a litre. It had an expiry of a few days from then so we figured they had processed it somehow, but it was not pasteurized. We also spotted a focacceria and headed in to grab some bread to enjoy with dinner. Afterwards we wandered back to the waterfront to enjoy the sunset from a bar on the beach. Tan tried the local "limoncino" and I had a “granita”, a kind of slushy but with peach flavour. The sunset was beautiful and we had a prime spot to view it from! We then headed back to camp to make a late dinner and enjoy our focaccia with olive oil and balsamic.

The next day we got up, made lunches just in case we didn’t find a menu we liked along the way, and headed off to the train station. We caught the train to Riomaggiore, the town furthest away from us, at the south end of Cinque Terre. We walked from there to Manorola, an easy 20 minute stroll along the “via dell’amore” or “lover’s lane”. The views were incredible and the water was such a beautiful blue. When we got to Manorola it was like grand central station – there were tour groups everywhere!!! We squeezed our way by the waiting hoards and headed in to the town to get a view looking back on it. We also walked around the point to see Corniglia, the next town over. Unfortunately, this time we couldn’t walk that section of the path because it was still washed out from the mudslides of a few years ago. Instead, we headed back to the train station (thank goodness the hoards had left) and hopped on the next train to Corniglia. Once there we headed up the stairs in to town and stopped at the top for a gelato.

We then walked the next section to Vernaza which was on a much narrower path although they had started putting up guard rails since our last visit. We saw lots of people swimming off boats or off the rocks below and it looked amazing. We were hoping for a swim in Levanto once we got back to camp. We walked for about 1.5 hours before arriving in Vernaza. We had enjoyed pesto gnocchi at a restaurant near the train station last time and were glad to see that they still had it on the menu. We found a spot and ordered pesto gnocchi all around. Then Dad and Anoop spotted mussel pasta on the table next to us and decided to order one of those for them to share as well. The gnocchi was amazing and the sauce on the mussel pasta was delicious too! We then headed over to the cove to enjoy the view of the water and were amazed at the number of sunbathers and swimmers. We picked up another gelato for dessert and headed off on the last section of the hike.

The last section is about 2 hours long and winds its way over to Monterosso al mare. The path is much narrower and you have to watch your footing a bit more. We climbed up fairly steeply for a while and arrived at the high part of the walk with amazing views. The parts that we remembered being the narrowest now had guard rails as well – I guess when they were rebuilding the path they decided they might as well add in a few safety measures. We passed by one house that looked like it had been chopped in half by the mudslide – some furniture was still left inside, but half the house was missing. We passed by olive groves and lemon trees before a steep descent in to Monterosso. Once there we checked the train schedule and had some time to kill. We happened upon a choir group performing outside near the water. We listened while Anoop decided to leap in the water for a swim in his shorts as we had not brought swimsuits with us. We signaled to him when it was time to go and he wandered over absolutely dripping; the man in the fancy suit, shoes and sunglasses beside us kept looking over at Anoop with a horrified look while he wrung out his shorts and put his shirt back on. We headed over to the train station at a bit of a jog because it was further away than we had thought and spent a few minutes trying to figure out where exactly it was. We arrived to see tons of people on the platform; the previous train was an hour late! Eventually it arrived and we crammed on board since we only had to go to the next station. We got back to camp too late for a swim, but decided that the next morning we would head down before going to Venice.

In the morning we woke up to cloudy skies. Luckily it was still fairly warm so we headed down to the beach regardless. We enjoyed a swim in nice warm water (the water at home never gets that warm) and then lay on the beach looking at rocks for a while. There were really neat ones that were all black with lots of white rings around them. After that, we headed back to camp to finish packing up and set off for Venice.