We travelled by bus from the port of Livorno to Cinque Terre today. It is a World Heritage Site. Cinque Terre means five villages and we went to four of them. They are all in the hills where the mountains come down to the sea. We went by bus to the second of the villages, Manarola. Here people grow grape vines on extremely steep hills. In this village the people grow vines, make wine and fish. It is obvious that the mountains have been formed from massive volcanic activity in the past, and there are great examples of synclines and anticlines in the region. The bus let us out at the top of the hill and we walked down to sea level. We then walked back to the first village, Riomaggiore, walking along the Via de l’Amore, or lover’s walk. Along this walk young lovers attach padlocks to wire fences to pledge their love. In Riomaggiore we went by boat to the fourth of the villages, Vernazza. After looking around this beach side village we caught another boat to the fifth village of Monterosso. This was the largest of the villages that make up Cinque Terre. It seemed to have quite a nice swimming area. On the beach there were hundreds of beach umbrellas and deck chairs. People have to pay 0.50 euros to go onto the beach but they do get the use of the chair and umbrella. It is possible to walk the whole distance up hill and down between the five villages. This would be an interesting thing to do in the future when we have a spare week or two to spend in this area. We had lunch in Monterosso. We ate the local specialty, which is pasta with pesto sauce. The pasta is homemade small pasta, which is made by winding the pasta around a knitting needle. Tonight we set sail for Cannes. This will make three countries in three days. (Barbara) A spectacular location (Bill)
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