Cinque Terre

The night in Lucca was warm, very warm, but super quiet. Today we drove from Lucca to La Spezia. At first Andi wanted to take a route of 60km and 2.5 hours, but since I know what the roads are like, we decided to take the motorway and were there in 1 hour.

As we drove onto the highway from La Spezia, we saw the port area, where I immediately spotted a large Aida. Oh dear, cruise ship heading towards Cinque Terre too, that could be fun.

Our parking spot for the night is in an industrial area and will certainly be noisy, as there is a road to the right and left of it, where many drivers think they are on the race track. Unfortunately, there are not many options for spending the night here.

We parked the car, checked the map and then went to a train station in the middle of nowhere to go towards Cinque Terre. We were a bit unlucky with the weather, it rained every now and then but only for a few minutes or seconds and it was a decent amount. We only saw 2 of the 5 Terre today. The train was full and the Chinese tour groups weren't exactly quiet.

Manarola is a really small village surrounded by vineyards. Very idyllic. After a delicious focaccia, we walked the mountain between Manarola and Riomaggiore. Phew, we were rarely so sweaty and exhausted. The climb was really tough and where it goes up, it goes down just as steeply.

Riomaggiore is also chic but a bit bigger. The magical flair of the town didn't really come through, partly because of the weather.

The trains are full and the stations are crowded, but we are there in the off-season, I don't want to know what it's like in the high season. But we might do that next year, but then by boat and to the other three places.

On the way back from the train station we walked through La Spezia, which is an industrial city, as you can see.

The night will be fun tonight with the traffic behind us, but well, we can catch up on sleep later