We later learned that over half of the ship took a ship's tour to the town of Florence, and I don't blame them. It is absolutely the most 'must see' site in the area. Located a 90 minutes drive from the port of Livorno, those tour groups were leaving early today too. But we have been in Livorno before, and had already done Florence and the Uffizi Gallery and the Accademia. We've also been to Pisa, located only about a 30-minute drive from Livorno. So today we were determined to see the Cinque Terre, a series of five fishing villages located along a 15-mile stretch of western Italy between Livorno and Portofino. I had tried to figure out a way to do these on our own but finally realized that, to do these in one day from the ship, they were best done through a ship's excursion. You'll soon realize why..:
We boarded our nice tour bus (no WiFi though:-() and met our guide for the day, Andrea. Andrea was a wonderful guide, full of enthusiasm about this part of Italy and a life long resident. But he was harious in telling us to keep our expectations in check...about the bus, about the train, about the boats we were using. "They are Italians buses (boats, trains); do not over-expect". Good advice about most things in life. We drove through Livorno and about an hour north through the Tuscany countryside to the town of La Spezia on the Gulf of the Poets, and home to the Italian Naval academy. There we saw the huge Royal Caribbean Harmony of the Seas docked, but Andrea assured us we would be visiting the Cinque Terre ahead of its masses.
Hillside towns before we arrived at the Cinque Terre
La Spezia with the Harmony of the Seaa in the background
Our first view of the hillside terraces where grapes are grown and for which the Cinque Terre is famous
We viewed the first of the five villages, Riomaggiore, from the bus. It was clinging to the side of the steep hills just above the ocean. In the next village, Manarola, we were dropped off by the bus above the town, and walked down the steep walkways and steps into the village. There were no cars allowed except for residents, in any of the towns until the final one, and the roads weren't roads at all, but narrow alleys and sidewalks lined with buildings, apartments and B&Bs.
Monorail system used to maintain and harvest the grapes on the steeply terraced hillsides
Steps like these built into the rock walls are found everywhere
Manarola bell tower
Steps like these lead to B&Bs and homes
Once we reached the waterfront, we boarded a ferry boat and traveled down the coast past Corniglia to the village of Vernazza. Here we disembarked the ferry and had about an hour to walk around the town on our own. Our weather to this point had been perfect, sunny if chilly, and the brightly colored buildings popped. As we boarded our next ferry for the 5-minute ride to the final village Monterosso, a cloud moved in and, though we didn't get rain, we didn't see the sun again.
Vernazza
Rock slide prevention
Hillside villages, not part of the Cinque Terre, could be seen in the distance
A rare view of the track and tunnel system for the trains that connect the five villages
Vernazza
Boats in the harbor in Vernazza
These boots probably hiked the Cinque Terre trail system
There is a 15 mile stone walkway that connects the villages that can be walked in about 5 hours. There are also trains that travel in tunnels through the mountains, and, of course, the ferries, but there is no way to travel between the villages by car.
The last village of Monterosso was the largest one. We had two hours to spend here, and, after attending an included wine tasting, had a lunch of different focaccias and the local wine. We had seen the steeply terraced hillsides planted with grape vines. These are still worked in the traditional manner, though simple monorails are used to help transport people and tools and harvested grapes up and down the hillsides. After lunch, G and I walked east along the walkway toward Vernazza a bit, just to experience the walk (it is very steep with stone stairs in various degrees of disrepair. It would be fun to return someday and do the entire walk, spending a day in each of the villages.
Monterosso
Lunch! I had the second one.
Paintable views everywhere
Oratorio della Confraternita dei Neri Mortis et Orationis
Footpath from Monterosso to Vernazza
Never ending steps
Sometimes the trail hangs out over the hillside
We met our group at 3pm and walked to the train station in Monterosso. From here we took a 5 minute train ride to the town of Levante where we were being met by our bus. It was about 3:45pm when we were finally onboard and settled in for the roughly 90 minute ride back to the ship. It was a pretty quiet bus on the return, except for Andrea pointing out the marble quarries on the mountainsides in Carrera and the bell tower in Pisa as we rode by.
Marble quarries in Carerra
Once back in the ship, we showered quickly and went to the Club Restaurant for dinner (it was open seating tonight). Joy of joys, it was the Italian menu tonight, and we smelled the garlic before we even got down to Deck 5. We purchased a bottle of Italian wine and had a wonderful meal. Head waiter Jozcko was making an appetizer of shrimp in white wine, and then I had a spinach and pecorino salad followed by a scallops and shrimp entree. One scoop of limoncello sorbet was a perfect end to the meal.
Though we were fading, we went to the 8pm production show called What the World Needs Now (I was wrong before when I said it was Colors of the World). This was mostly a singing show of Burt Bacharach type love songs. It lasted just 30 minutes, which was fine tonight as we were half asleep. G was out before his head touched a pillow but I needed to write this blog post and import photos from the camera to my iPad. I've kept this pretty short tonight, but if I don't wrap it up now I'll be falling asleep and getting hit in the nose when my iPad falls. I'll publish this post tomorrow morning and will add photos when I can. My favorites are now up to 112. Does anyone think these are going to get published anytime soon? (ETA: who knew that we'd have an unscheduled trip home and lots of 2am wake ups as we were still on European time?)