Oooooh heaven is a place on earth (Working title: good one Ryan)

Having dropped a (relatively) fair amount of dough in the French riviera, it was time to wave a bientot to Francais and hit the road for Italia! The Italian border is only a 20-30 minute drive from Nice, so we were there in no time. The drive was amazing - high up in the hills looking down on countless picturesque towns that line the "Italian riviera". We must have driven through at least 50 tunnels as well (we took the faster autoway, driving literally through the mountains, which meant spending 30 Euros in tolls that day!).

Portofino

A couple of hours along the road we turned off and headed to Portofino, a small fishing village/upmarket resort town. The drive there, winding narrow roads along the coast, was beautiful and past other equally looking upmarket resort towns. We managed to get a park (5.50 euro an hour though) and walked down to the port, which was very quaint! Now I already knew this place was pretty flash, but I didn't expect the Dior and Rolex shops, nor the prices of the restaurants! Sure they had lovely views, but this was the first place we'd been where they weren't advertising their menus/prices on blackboards outside. When I flicked open one menu and saw a glass of wine ("100mL") was 12-15 Euros we knew we were out of our league!

Our balcony in Riomaggiore, Cinque Terre - heaven!

OK not all the restaurants were outrageous - there was some cafe/pizzeria type places where you could get a pizza for 12-15 euros, so we went to one of these cheap and cheerful places (we could kind of see the water!) and were greeted by a very friendly old Italian man. He recommended I get the foccacia col formmagio, which was "typical of the region", and Ryan got a caprese salad. They were both yum - I fear there will be a lot of buffalo mozzarella consumed in the next 3 weeks! So after lunch  we headed back to the car and hit the road again for Cinque Terre. I had been to Cinque Terre just for the day with my good friend Roxy ten years ago, and had vowed to come back ever since. When we were close and reached the coast up in the hills with impossible views of the Mediterranean, Coldplay's Paradise appropriately came on the radio, and my eyes pretty much welled up with pure delight.

Riomaggiore

We checked into our accommodation, I Limoni di Thule, which was an amazing find. Up on the hill, we could even park there (rare in Cinque Terre) and we had a room with fridge and spacious balcony with 180 degrees of the Mediterranean. It doesn't get much better than this kids! Even Ryan exclaimed when the lovely owner opened the balcony doors to reveal the view. We soon headed down the stairs to the town area, which was lovely. I hadn't been to this village one before - we had gone to 3 out of the 5, but this one didn't disappoint.

Riomaggiore main drag

We headed down to the port where Ryan went for a quick dip while I sat down and took some photos and stared up at these beautiful coloured buildings. It's funny because we haven't come across many Australians on this trip (apart from maybe in San Sebastian) but it turns out they're all in Cinque Terre, and why wouldn't you be? It's the poor man's Portofino and Amalfi Coast but to me, fortunately, it blows both of them out of the water.

Manarola

We stopped at a little bar in the main drag for our first prosecco of the trip. It was 3 euros - phew! Back into the land of good value! Then we headed back up the hill (which is a killer - all pigging out is justified in this town!) to our balcony, and chilled out while we watched the sun set. It was phenomenal. Then we headed back to town for dinner - a little bar/cafe where Ryan had a spicy tomato pasta and I had a caprese salad, jealous of what Ryan had for lunch. The tomatoes here are fantastic - so red and tasty! And buffalo mozarella, tomatoes and basil (topped with a generous amount of olive oil of course) should just always be eaten together. After dinner we just had a quiet evening on the balcony, admiring the millions of stars that we don't normally get to appreciate. We then found out that Ryan had left his mobile phone in the hotel room in Nice, but they found it and would send it on to our hotel in Venice (which turned out to cost 62 Euro, oddly enough the cost of a night in the Nice hotel). Good one Ryan.

Panoramic view somewhere along the Cinque Terre walk

The next morning we woke early-ish ready for a day of walking. Cinque Terre has, funnily enough, 5 fishing villages along the coast, and you can walk between all of them. We walked down to the main drag of Riomaggiore and had some brekky (bacon and eggs for him, yoghurt and fruit for me - how healthy!). Then we set off on the walk. We never intended to do it all because the whole thing is 9km of up and down hill trails, but we wanted to do a chunk. Anyway, we bought out 5 Euro national park ticket and began the walk. Riomaggiore is the first (most Eastern town) and the walk to the next village, Manarola, is a 15 minute (1km) flat, wide, piss-easy stroll, along a spectacular coastline, called Via dell'Amore where couples tie padlocks to whatever they can find to seal their love or something.

Corniglia

We walked along lovers lane to Manarola which is just stunning, and as fate would have it, you couldn't walk the trail to the next village due to landslides. Well, what can you do... safety first! So we got the train to the next village, Corniglia which is up on the hilltop. Because you couldn't walk here, the train was overpacked, overheated and uncomfortable. Having survived that, we alighted at Corniglia and had to (unexpectedly) climb about 8 or more flights of brick stairs. But we made it. Then we were intent on doing the walk to the next town, Vernazza, a 1 hour 45 min walk apparently. So after stopping for a quick small lunch, we set off.

Leo's oasis, at the top of the hill

We did the trek which was not too crazy, although I have a this mental problem where if there isn't a fence and we're high up, I feel like my body is going to defy gravity and just fall off the cliff. Its not a nice feeling, but there were fences for at least half the trek. It was pretty hot, and the path kept climbing up and down. Once we reached the summit, just like a mirage we reached "Leo's place", a little house right on the top of the hill where he welcomes you into his garden and offers you water and fresh figs he picks off the trees in his garden. Unbelievably kind and generous, and exactly what I needed. After cooling down a bit we left (not before Leo called out to us and said "Scusi - camera". Ryan had left the DSLR behind. Good one Ryan.

Relieved - reaching Vernazza

Disaster averted, we started the descent down towards Vernazza, which was actually my favourite village from when I had last visited. Unfortunately last October Vernazza suffered massive damage from severe flooding. Check out these clips and you'll see how bad it was. They had to rebuild a lot of the town, and most businesses only reopened this high season. It was good to see the town looked pretty much back to normal, with only a couple of buildings noticeably damaged/un-fixable. We went for a quick dip in the water - just near where the little boats are so not the clearest of waters, but we just wanted to wash the sweat off us from the walk! Then after drying off we stopped for a beer and prosecco while a young woman sang opera just next to us in the square. La di da.

Vernazza, using a fancy setting on the little camera!

We didn't really want to/were not capable of doing the final 1.5 hour trek (apparently the hardest) to Monterosso, and I was especially not keen as Monterosso is a crowded beach resort town and doesn't look like any of the others. So we decided we'd get the boat back to Manarola, then walk back along lovers lane and stop in at a little bar cafe perched high on the cliff. So we got our tickets to Manarola, and waited for a while with the growing crowd (Australians are actually very polite with their queue-ing!). We finally got on and set of sail past Corniglia to Manarola. I headed up front and got off the boat and walked ahead to wait for Ryan. And waited. I assumed he must have been fixing up his bag or tying up his shoe or something, but when I walked back to see where he was, the boat had left and no one else was there! Ryan had not gotten off the boat! Good one Ryan.

Pretty nice spot for a bar - where are the people?!

I still don't know why he didn't know to get off there, but anyway, I knew it was a short walk back to our village and figured I'd meet him back at the hotel. So with only my little camera on me, I started the walk and then straight away got asked for my national park day pass. Dang, Ryan had it! I half laughed and cried and said I didn't have it because my husband had it but he didn't get off the boat.
"What?!"
"My husband has my pass but he didn't get off the boat".
"Why didn't he get off the boat?!"
"I don't know!!" and threw my hands up in despair.
And so either she sympathised with me or thought I was completely silly, but just waved me on through. So I walked back down lovers lane alone.
Once at the end of the path Ryan was there heading back towards me. Apparently he didn't know we were getting off at Manarola (???).
Anyway, after going back and cooling off in the shower in more ways than one, there was still plenty of time to enjoy the lovers lane and bar perched high on the hills, so we headed back down. If you see the picture above, we were basically the only ones there. If this was a bar in Sydney, the drinks would be 5 times the price and there would be a one hour wait or something. So we enjoyed a beer/prosecco and tasted some local cheeses and honey. Just lovely.

Pesto - typical of the region

That night we went and had dinner at a place right near by recommended to us by the lovely lady who ran our hotel. Conveniently, it was up the hill so we didn't have to hike up or down! The food was great - we shared mixed seafood appetisers and I had a local fish dish (with tomatoes and olives) and Ryan had a pesto pasta. Pesto is from this region so Ryan was very keen to get his hands on some of it. It certainly was tasty, although Ryan's pesto is pretty amazing too. Then Ryan ordered a panna cotta dessert. I insisted I only wanted a taste, so I had one spoonful and it was so mind-blowing that I just put the spoon down and said "I'm going to pretend that never happened", which Ryan said was the funniest thing I've ever said?!

Not quite as comfortable as a beach back home

The next morning we went down to town and had some brekky, then walked around to the "beach". I could hardly walk over the rocks, and after Ryan went for his swim and said they're also very slippery, I decided not to even brave getting to a from the water because a sprained ankle was highly likely. So we relaxed on the rocky beach, then got a cone of fried stuff (from a place that fries anything and everything, puts it in a paper cone, and 7 euros later, prego!). We relaxed on the balcony for a bit, and then Ryan had booked a dive at 2pm so we headed down for that and I did some souvenir shopping, then hiked up the hill (which seemed to get harder every time?!) and caught up on emailing until Ryan came back.

So good it's ridiculous

 After Ryan's dive we spent most of the rest of the evening on our lovely balcony. It really was blissful. We just popped down to town to pick up some takeaway pasta to have back at home. What a heavenly few days. It really is one of, if not number one, in my large list of favourite places in the world. Ryan said we can run a B&B here one day. So long as I get over my fear of heights, get more fit, and learn Italian, I think we could!

Last sunset on Cinque Terre