Italian adventures: Riomaggiore and Manarola
Day 2 in Cinque Terre was spent exploring the two southmost villages, Riomaggiore and Manarola. It was a much grayer day than the day before, and as we reached Riomaggiore it started to rain. Not much, but enough to bother us just a bit.
We went through the tunnel into the village and walked up the main street. Riomaggiore has a lot more shops than Corniglia, and we decided to buy our groceries for that day’s dinner there. We had also decided on cooking our own food rather than going to restaurants.
Riomaggiore, like most of the Cinque Terre villages, is very hilly. P pushed the stroller a long way up the hill, but after a certain point it did not look like there was much more to see, and also there were stairs going off in different directions. She had a quick lookout up one of them, but basically that was it, and we headed back down and through the tunnel again, to reach the famous Via dell’Amore, the walking path to Manarola.
Like I said, it wasn’t the best day weather-wise, which was a pity because the photos would have come out much nicer with blue skies and sunshine, but it was still a very scenic route. It is also the easiest of the walking paths in Cinque Terre, so it was no problem for the kids. They were starting to get a bit tired though, but bravely made it.
Part of the path is through a tunnel with windows in it, and there I found some Cinque Terre street art. Interesting stuff, some of it.
In Manarola we found a pizza place where we ordered a bunch of slices of pizza and farinata. Pizzas are good there, but thicker than the ones we had in Tuscany.
We looked around in Manarola some more, then decided to split up. As the boys were tired, D took them back to our apartment, and P, baby and I headed on back to Riomaggiore where we thought we’d do some grocery shopping for dinner. No such luck. The grocery stores were closed til after five due to siesta. Then we thought we’d take a boat to Portovenere, but the boat we wanted was cancelled that day, and the following one would leave us no time to explore Portovenere until we’d have to catch the boat back home. I guess it wasn’t our day.
Instead we relaxed for a while in the port, finding a good spot for taking some nice pictures with the typical colorful Riomaggiore houses in the background.
For dinner P made some great pasta with pesto and peppers, and we enjoyed the privacy having our own kitchen gave us, and also the relatively primitive feeling of the small kitchen. An early night, which was good since I woke up early because our bedroom was flooded with light.
More photos from our second day in Cinque Terre.
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