Cinque Terre!

Levanto was not only a wonderful coastal town in the middle of a rewarding trail network, but also the gateway to the famous Cinque Terre. Five villages that were clapped onto a rough, steep coastline ages ago and amazingly still hang there today. A UNESCO World Heritage site that is normally extremely crowded, but in this strange pandemic summer offered me the special opportunity to be explored during a probably unique Sleeping Beauty sleep.

Fortunately, the villages can be reached easily by train. Half-hour connections through countless tunnels allowed for quick commuting between the five stops, so I could spend a whole day doing fairly classic sightseeing. Pretty much alone, I strolled through the narrow alleys and steep paths of these beautifully colorful villages against an impressive backdrop of rocks and the sea. The weather held up better than expected, with a mix of occasional sun rays fighting their way through the clouds and a stirred-up, stormy sea creating a very special atmosphere.

The next day was quite usable as well. It was continuously cloudy and gray-damp-cold, but most of the trails in the hinterland of Levanto were still quite rideable. The emphasis is on most, because the last trail of the day got lost in the middle of the olive grove in thorny shrubs. I must admit that if you get stuck in there because you think there must be a way to continue, it's not so easy to maneuver yourself back out. Numerous stubborn thorns clung relentlessly to the clothing, and even a 180-degree body turn to retreat required a lot of finesse and inevitably a certain amount of blood sacrifice.