Rounding out Cinque Terre…Riomaggiore and Corniglia, Cinque Terre, Italy

Our coffee shop by the passenger tunnel to the train station was closed this morning, so we had to try another place down Main Street closer to the harbor. They made crepes. Heidi ordered a Nutella crepe and I tried a mozzarella asparagus one. For me, it was nothing to write home about, but it was breakfast (the most important meal of the day :-)). Heidi’s looked rather tasty!

We finally confirmed that the entire coastal path was closed except the section that we hiked yesterday and that section was the hardest part! If we chose to take any other paths, we’d have to climb to the top of the mountain. The 1km hike to Riomaggiore from Manarola was estimated to take 1.5 hours!?! I’m still trying to wrap my head around that calculation, though last night when we started walking up the 200 plus stairs, it was slow going. Therefore, train rides were in our future.

Of course, without knowing the schedule we arrived at the station with 30 minutes to spare, so we asked the station attendant the best way to purchase tickets. A pass to get on and off the train anywhere in Cinque Terre lasted 6 hours, otherwise individual ticket purchases were required. Each ticket had to be validated at the entry station, otherwise a 50 euro fine was possible. ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).