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| Manarola, third of the Five Lands |
Another Friday is here, and I'm ready! Today's Florence Friday is a follow-up on the Amalfi Coast. We're going to learn a little more about it's cousin to the north, Cinque Terre.
Also, I have an embarrassing admission to make. The first picture in my Amalfi Coast Blog, is actually a picture of Manarola. >.< See how confusing this is???
Cinque Terre is probably the coastline I laid eyes on first in my google searches, as it is much closer to Florence than the Amalfi Coast is. This map is particularly helpful to me...what with my need to learn basic Italian geography before I head over there. >.<**also, Milan isn't on there, but from my hotdog pizza post, I know it's more north than Venice is! =)
Like the Amalfi Coast, Cinque Terre is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site (Cinque Terre National Park), and it literally means "The Five Lands". These five lands are the five villages along the coastline: Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore.
They fall on the southern tip of the Italian Riviera. And that's pretty much the order of them as you go north to south on a map. Like the one below:
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| BAM. map. |
A quick wiki search tells me that Monterosso has some splendid white wines, and they have many lemon trees growing throughout the town. They also have the Monterosso Giant, which, by the name, made me automatically think of the Fremont Troll. Ummm, I was way off. It's also the only town out of the five that doesn't possess that old world charm. It's more resort-y.
Vernazza suffered a huge flood in 2011 that I assume they're still recovering from. Tourism is their biggest industry, but there's also no car traffic there, and they try to stay true to their fishing town roots. They also have a local wine called "vernaccia" which literally means "native" or "ours".
Corniglia does NOT have a beach. It is what they consider a "frazione", or fraction of Vernazza. Three sides are vineyards and terraces, and the fourth is a steep cliff that goes straight into the sea. In fact, there are only two ways into the terrace town. Via the Lardarina (a pathway with 33 flights and 382 brick steps ascending through the surrounding terraces on the cliffside), or supposedly there is a bus that takes tourists up there. There's also the rumor of a castle once existing up there, but no one has ever found it.
Manarola is a frazione of Riomaggiore. Their renowned local wine is called Sciacchetrá, and I have NO idea how to say that. One of the reasons I might visit Manarola is to hike Via dell'Amore, or Love's Trail. It's one of the hiking trails that goes up into the cliffside, and actually leads all the way to Riomaggiore. Another fun fact? They probably modeled one of the towns in Half Life 2 after this town.
Riomaggiore is known as Rimazúu in the local dialect. It has the least informational wiki page out of the five...but that forced me to discover WIKITRAVEL--which tells me that cliffjumping is a popular Riomaggiore past time. I will now be using wikitravel for all my travelling research needs.
A train runs along the Spezia Centrale and hits all five cities pretty frequently over the course of the day. Another option is to take a car in...although all the websites and travel guides I've come across warn me that the roads in the Cinque Terre are "not for the faint of heart".
Something that The Cinque Terre offer in each is a fair amount of hiking. There are trails between each village, and some of them are said to offer stunning views of the ocean. Wikitravel advises to go during the mornings to avoid the sun, but knowing me, I'll probably favor the evening times because I so love my sunsets. =)
They also promise old-style foods...chestnut pesto pasta, wine bars, music, summer nightlife...I wonder what the locals live like?
Happy Florence Friday, everyone. Have a good weekend!
Corniglia does NOT have a beach. It is what they consider a "frazione", or fraction of Vernazza. Three sides are vineyards and terraces, and the fourth is a steep cliff that goes straight into the sea. In fact, there are only two ways into the terrace town. Via the Lardarina (a pathway with 33 flights and 382 brick steps ascending through the surrounding terraces on the cliffside), or supposedly there is a bus that takes tourists up there. There's also the rumor of a castle once existing up there, but no one has ever found it.
Riomaggiore is known as Rimazúu in the local dialect. It has the least informational wiki page out of the five...but that forced me to discover WIKITRAVEL--which tells me that cliffjumping is a popular Riomaggiore past time. I will now be using wikitravel for all my travelling research needs.
A train runs along the Spezia Centrale and hits all five cities pretty frequently over the course of the day. Another option is to take a car in...although all the websites and travel guides I've come across warn me that the roads in the Cinque Terre are "not for the faint of heart".
Something that The Cinque Terre offer in each is a fair amount of hiking. There are trails between each village, and some of them are said to offer stunning views of the ocean. Wikitravel advises to go during the mornings to avoid the sun, but knowing me, I'll probably favor the evening times because I so love my sunsets. =)
They also promise old-style foods...chestnut pesto pasta, wine bars, music, summer nightlife...I wonder what the locals live like?
Happy Florence Friday, everyone. Have a good weekend!
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