Cinque Terre is definitely Bucket List Territory. Many, many people pass through this lovely region of the Italian Riviera and check the box with a Cruise Ship tour or a quick excursion from Rome or “Do It” as an endurance trek from end-to-end in a single day. To really appreciate it, you must hike the trails. We spent 3 nights/4 days on the Cinque Terre Trail, sometimes referred to as the 5 Terre. Our journey began with a cross country train ride from Nice in Southern France to La Spezia, Italy near the Southern end of the trail. From there, we took the €4/20 minute local train that runs roughly every half-hour through the five villages of Cinque Terre (from North to South): Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia (pronounced Cornelia) , Manarola, and Riomaggiore.
Our basic plan was to leave Nice with only our hiking backpacks (about 7 kg/15 lbs each) and no reservations other than our return train tickets and see what happened along the way – we weren’t disappointed with what fate provided for food and lodging. We went in mid-October which is about 6 weeks off the high season, but we still had nice enough weather to swim in every village.
We got off the train in Monterosso and after an obligatory Gelato stop, got on the trail. The whole trail is quite easy to find, and well maintained. It’s more of a well-used path that sees thousands of tourists every year than a hiking trail. At each village, you will find a small manned kiosk where you must pay, €7.50 (cash only) to enter the Cinque Terre National Park for the day. The trail immediately starts rising gently but consistently out of Monterosso to a terrace in the hill with gentle ups and downs until you are greeted with a spectacular view of Vernazza from above and then at some point the trail just becomes one of the streets of Vernazza until you reach the main Piazza and the small harbor.
Somewhere near the half-way point, there is a fellow selling homemade Limoncello from a make-shift window out of his vineyard right on the trail. Not a pull-off or wide spot, just on the trail. It was delicious. Once in Vernazza, we started looking for a room for the night. Again, using Gelato as an international language, we asked a gelato vendor for room suggestions and were told to simply start knocking on doors that advertised Camere (Rooms) on the front. This method turned out to be ridiculously easy in all three towns where we stayed. We never had to ask more than a second door to get a delightful room.
In Vernazza, we stayed in one of Franca Maria’s rooms just off the main piazza. It was a little expensive at €110 and I’m sure we could have negotiated harder, but we elected to take it without any further discussion.
In Vernazza, we enjoyed birra e’ vino on the harbor where the nice fellow at the bar window told us to just take the glasses and bring them back when we were done – very civilized. Once the sun had set, we wandered through the town for about 30 min and came back to the main piazza for dinner at Gambero Rosso where we enjoyed frutti di mare (fruit of the sea) and pasta.
The next morning after dropping our packs with Franca Maria to watch for us, we visited Vernazza Sport where we bought new Italian shoes to support the local climbing store before walking through the cathedral and walking up to the top of the castle. It costs €2 to go all the way to the top, but the view is worth it. After a small breakfast of croissant con prosciutto e fomaggio, it was time to hit the trail for Corniglia.
The trail from Vernazza to Corniglia is similar to the trail from Monterosso to Vernazza. It rises gently but consistently along the steep hills above the sea. Unlike the previous day’s trail, this one pretty much goes up to a high-point and then starts back down. At the high-point, you pass through a small villa (not a village, just a villa) where you can stop for lunch or another limoncello with a spectacular view of Corniglia. The trail down to Corniglia passes through a number of Olive Groves and Vineyards. You can see the netting strung between the olive trees to harvest the fruit and you can also see a kind of single-track funicular that runs through the vineyards.
Conrniglia is the only village that doesn’t actually sit right on the sea. The main piazza is about 100ft of elevation above the sea, which makes this the most remote village as tourists have to either climb the switchback steps from the train station or catch the “periodic” shuttle from the train station up to the town. This also means that swimming in the small fishing harbor requires a bit of a hike down to the sea and the corresponding hike back up after your swim, but the swim was well worth it. Similar to Vernazza, we arrived and started asking for rooms. The second place we tried was Da Cecio which offered clean and convenient Sea View rooms at a reasonable €70 per night. We dined in Corniglia at Cantina de Mananan and ended up sharing our table with a nice young British couple who also walked in without reservations and our 4-top table had the only available seats.
From Corniglia to Manarola and Riomaggiore is only a mile-and-a-half by sea, but both of the main trails have been closed for many years because of washouts. So you have the option of hiking up-and-over a roughly 4 mile/1,200 ft trail that goes up to the highway and down to both villages OR take the 5 minute train between each village. We elected to take the train to Manarola and hike a third other-other option; up-and-over Trail 531 between Manarola and Riomaggiore. The trip from Corniglia to Manarola was very easy, it was a train ride.
The trip from Manarola to Riomaggore was a little bit like more arduous. Since the Via del Amore (Lover’s Walk) trail between Riomaggiore and Manarola is closed, Manarola sometimes gets skipped by through hikers who elect to hike from Corniglia around Manarola to Riomaggiore. This is a shame, because Manarola is a gem of a village with outstanding picturesque views from the cemetery back to the town. We had a lunch of spaghetti nero e’ gamberi with chianti at Marina Piccola and then hit the up-and-over Trail 531 between Manarola and Riomaggiore. This trail rises the same roughly 800 feet as the other trails, but it does it over 1/8 mile instead of 1 mile. It’s pretty steep with big steps and some hand holds.
Once in Riomaggiore, on our second try, we found a rooftop apartment with a rooftop terrace at Dune Blu for €80. After a swim in the harbor, we were treated to a stunning October sunset from the roof top with wine, cheese, olives, anchovies, fresh pesto and a baguette that we bought in a small market walking back from the harbor. It was one of the nicest meals we have had in Europe.
The next morning, we simply caught the €10 morning ferry that runs roughly four times a day between all of the villages except Corniglia back to Monterosso and spent some time touring Monterosso and checking another gelato stand before getting back on the cross country train to Nice. The 5 Terre was a truly memorable experience that we will treasure for the rest of our lives.
Trekking Beta
The trails are well maintained and only require tennis shoes or trainers, not full hiking boots. A number of people choose to use trekking poles, but to be fair, I’m sure that in the summer high-season you could find people doing it in flip flops. Most of the people we saw on the trail (maybe 50 on the busiest day) were doing day hikes from one village to another with plans to train back to where they started.
While each day on the trail and each tea house was unique and special, the days also blur together looking back at them. Particular highlights on the trail include crossing the famous Hillary Bridge; hiking in the shadow of the iconic Ama Dablam mountain; views of Mount Everest; a blessing at the Tengboche Monastery complete with Khatas (ceremonial white scarves) and Kalavas (traditional red string tied around the neck or wrist); and of course camping at EBC with “High Definition” views of Mount Everest, Mount Nuptse, Mount Lhotse, and the dozens of unnamed 6,000 and 7,000 meter peaks in the Solukhumbu Valley. By far the best highlight for me personally, was celebrating my birthday by ice climbing in the Khumbu Icefall and getting BIRTHDAY CAKE baked in a Dutch Oven at 17,500 ft at EBC.
The food was all good with generous portions but eventually became a little monotonous. Breakfast was generally some combination of fried eggs, scrambled eggs, omelet eggs, hard boiled eggs, toast, pancakes, and porridge. Dinner was generally some combination of Dal Bhat RaRa Soup, and Momos. Sometimes you could get spaghetti and meatballs and sometimes you could get chicken but conventional wisdom said to stay away from meat dishes after day three, above Namche Bazaar. Bringing some of your own food, particularly protein packages of chicken and comfort snacks you enjoy also goes a long way to enjoying the trip.
Generally, the Tea Houses are un-heated, small rooms with two twin beds. Tea House construction is commonly cinderblock external construction with single-pane windows and plywood walls. Our Tea Houses all had hinged doors with some form of lock (maybe a skeleton key, maybe a pad lock). We also had a mix of en-suite bathrooms and common toilets. Some Tea Houses offered hot showers for 1,000NPR – Nepalese Rupee – (~$7.50USD) and some didn’t. Nearly all offered some form of internet connectivity with varying degrees of success for a fee of around 800NPR ($6.00USD) for 24 hours, and all offered some form of clean water for 150NPR to 300NPR ($1.00USD to $2.00USD) per liter. Many trekkers simply use iodine purification tabs and trust the water from a common tap. While the ease and cost of buying water for a couple of weeks is convenient, Trekkers should be prepared with some form of water purification as a backup. In addition, our guides provided us with boiling water to fill our Nalgene bottles each night. These provided nice bed warmers as well as some clean water for the next days trek.
Temperatures on the trail during our trek were very pleasant. Daytime hiking temps tended to be in the high 40’s F (9 C). While the Tea Houses are all unheated, the bunks generally come with some sort of duvet or comforter to put over your sleeping bag for extra warmth. With nighttime outside temps in the high 20’s F (-3C) the inside temps tended to run in the low 40’s F (+5C). On our trip, we had one day of steady rain which made the trail slick and made the day generally uncomfortable. There is a certain amount of suffering and hardship that comes with any worthwhile mountaineering endeavor. Long days, steep climbs, aching muscles, and cold wet conditions kind of come with the territory.
Of course, climbing over a small rise and pulling into EBC on the ninth day of the Trek was the pinnacle of the trip. After many years as a mountaineer, following in the footsteps of Hillary, Norgay, Unsoeld, the Whittakers, Messner, Fischer, Hall, Purja and so many others, this trip for me was bit of a pilgrimage. The opportunity to spend two nights at EBC and go ice climbing in the Khumbu Icefall was an epic experience of a lifetime and the Trekkers, Climbers, Western Guides, and Sherpa Guides we spent a couple of weeks with made the trip that much more memorable.
Fast forward a few days after a helicopter ride from the village of Pheriche back to Kathmandu with Wayne suffering from dysentery and me suffering from mild AMS. The first thing we did was take a hot shower, eat a cheeseburger, and drink a cold beer. The next thing we did was to meet Karma and Sanam Sherpa from The Small World. The Small World is a non-profit operating in Nepal with a mission to educate young women and break the cycle of poverty, abuse, and trafficking that affect so many Nepalese woman. They also have a US based 501(c)3 charitable organization called The Small World USA. Our local Columbia Center Rotary Club of Kennewick is working with The Small World and the Rotary Club of Kathmandu on joint projects to support The Small World mission.
Phil Ohl
[DIsclaimer: No goods or services were provided in exchange for inclusion in this article]
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