Cinque Terrific! (I AM VERY SORRY)

When I first posted a photo from Cinque Terre on my Instagram feed, I started getting a steady stream of comments from friends saying some variation of "this is my favorite place on earth." And I'll tell you what: it was very crowded and quite hot, which are two of my least favorite things, but... I get it. It's pretty magical. It's exceedingly lovely. It's a reminder of how precarious our environment is. And I would love, very much, to go back midweek some spring or fall, to take another swing at it. After the jump: videos, photos, and... that's about it I guess??

Stupid. Cinque Terre is stupid. Everybody stop going there it's very dumb and not worth it ok.

A little context for those who don't know about this spot: Cinque Terre is technically a national park built around five coastal towns (Riomaggiore, Manarola, Cannaregio, Vernazza and Monterosso) with extensive hiking trails between them. The park's central path requires a pass to hike, though since a series of mudslides a few years back, all but two sections of it have been closed to the public while they rebuild and fortify. The other trails are free, though often extremely challenging. Even with my summer-long (this and last year) propensity for walking everywhere and hiking whenever possible, some of these were brutal. Still, it's uhhhhh very good there.

Some boats and some dirt, who cares? I can see boats and dirts anywhere really. Definitely do not take a cruise ship to this destination it is for sure not worth it do not do further research on the topic.

One of the most delightful things about the Cinque Terre is a camaraderie between hikers. Lots of Aussies and Germans on the trails, as well as a number of Japanese, French, and Italian visitors, but no matter where people are from, there's a sense - on the steep hikes especially - of shared delight, and a lot of "it gets steep up ahead" or "you're almost done, downhill from here!" conversations. As with most other iterations of travel: peoples is kind sometimes!

Here's a good alternative to the Cinque Terre: get some plastic boats, sit in your bathtub, and look at a picture of some Italian buildings. There! It's like you went there yourself! You definitely don't need to go now. You already did it!

The place is crowded these days. Cruise ships have started to offer day trip excursions, which the area really can't sustain - there's discussion among locals and with the park's administrators of actually limiting the number of day visitors allowed in, as it's become something of a nuisance. You can avoid some of this - the trails aren't gated off, so you can start at dawn (between 5:30 and 6 when I was there) and have the hike almost entirely to yourself, retreating to cafes or your hotel/apartment when the hordes descend between 10 and 4 or so. The trains get swarmed in that time, and the adorable towns a bit too. It's not as bad as this phenomenon can get (ships' passengers will typically split up between this, Pisa, and other destinations) but a little foresight keeps it from being much of a bother.

This looks like there's a unique quality of light in Riomaggiore in the early morning but why go all the way across the world just to find out? You could watch a movie set in Italy! That's a good workaround too.

The cities themselves are an interesting quintet. My friend Danielle and I shared a rental in Vernazza, at the midpoint, and it was cute in the extreme... but if doing it again, I might stay elsewhere. While the bulk of the main trail is closed, Corniglia might be a great spot to make a home base, as the trails from there up through Vernazza to Monterosso are open, allowing for a one-day one-way hike that would be tough but satisfying, and saving the trickier high-climbing hikes in the other direction for a second (free) day. Of all the cities, Riomaggiore was probably my favorite, as it felt the most fully-developed, where the others all definitely had a pretty solid "tourism is what we do" resort town energy. I mean, they all did, because they all are, but I'm finding I like spots that have a sense of local daily energy to them, which I felt Riomaggiore had the most.

N.B. you can get friends to take photos of you in front of anything. Like, the Magic Kingdom or the Empire State Building! So many places that are very very good to go to that are not Cinque Terre.

Anyway, it was a delightful coupla days. Some delicious and simple fresh fish (fried and otherwise), lots of hiking, lots of mental-breaking from dissertation and job work in Florence (sorry, that was an extremely gross sentence) and generally a good pivot point heading into the next phase of the summer. Of which, more soon! I write this as I get ready to settle into Vienna for most of the rest of June, so over the coming days/weeks there should be updates here on my final stop in Italy and the exhausting-but-mostly-grand swoop I just finished through the Balkans. Onward and whatnot!

WHAT. EVER.