2022-07-18: Florence Day 1

It was an early morning this morning. We booked a tour to Cinque Terre today. We had to meet outside the Firenze Santa Maria Novella train station at 7:15am. In order to get there on time, we got ourselves up at 5:45am. We got ourselves showered and dressed. We picked up some breakfast food at the market yesterday so we had a quick bite of pastries, yogurt, and apricots in the apartment and then headed off to the train station.

The train station is about a 15 minute walk from the apartment. We arrived just before 7:15am. We booked the tour through Walkabout Tours. We quickly found the tour guides holding up Walkabout signs across the street from the train station. We got ourselves checked in and waited for the tour to start. There were two busloads of people (about 120 people) registered for the tour, so it was quite a bit larger than we were expecting. It was a little chaotic getting everyone checked in for the tour. By 7:30am, we were on our way.

We had to walk a few blocks to where the busses were located. We boarded the busses and started the two hour drive to La Spezia which was our starting point for the tour. Along the way, the guides provided some commentary on the local area we were driving through. We passed a large number of plant farms. Apparently this part of Italy provides around 25% of the ornamental plants for Europe. We also passed some large marble factories where they provide the beautiful white marble used in sculptures and buildings. This is where much of the white marble came from for the Roman architecture and sculptures such as the statue of David. While on the bus, they asked us individually if we wanted to join them for a group lunch in one of the villages for an extra cost of 15 euros per person or if we wanted to do lunch on our own. We elected to join for the group lunch.

Once we arrived in La Spezia, they split us into 4 groups. Two groups from each bus and assigned one of the guides to stay with. Our guides name was Emma. There were a couple of girls from Winnipeg in our group as well. Emma guided us a couple of blocks to the train station. We had a quick bathroom and snack break before boarding the train to Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre is a group of five small villages along the sea. The villages are protected Unesco heritage sites. Our first stop was the village of Manarola. We got off the train in Manarola and Emma took us up one of the roads to a viewpoint up the hill in the village. It was a beautiful view but it was hot! It was over 30 degrees again today. They have terraces where they grow local produce for the region. Because it’s a Unesco heritage site, any produce grown in the region must remain and be used in the region. After taking in the view from up top, we walked down through the village to the marina area. There is a walkway along the sea wall where you get an excellent view of the town. We had a few minutes to explore on our own before we headed back to the train station to continue on to the next town.

We hopped on the train and got off at the next stop which was the town of Corniglia. Corniglia isn’t actually on the sea like the other villages. It is higher up in the hills. From the train station, you can take a shuttle bus or walk 382 steps up the hill into the town. There was an option to hike from Corniglia to the next town of Vernazza. The guides suggested that those interested in the hike take the stairs as it’s a good indication of the intensity of the hike between villages. Patrick and Darrell were debating doing the hike so we decided to take the stairs. It was definitely a workout with the heat of the sun beating down on you. Michael managed to smack his head on one of the guard rails on the way up. There was no real damage, just a sore head. By the time we made it to the top, we were all very hot. Amanda and Michael especially as they don’t handle the heat well. We waited at the top of the stairs for our guide to arrive and then we continued on to a local restaurant for some lunch. We drank a ton of water and enjoyed a lovely two course meal at a restaurant the overlooks the valley below. The breeze that blew through every so often was very welcome. The first dish was a seafood platter with some calamari and a sardine stuffed with ham and cheese. It was delicious! If you didn’t know you were eating a sardine, you would have sworn you were eating a stuffed chicken cutlet. The second course was spaghetti, green beans, and some potato with pesto. The pesto they make in Cinque Terre is so good. After lunch was finished, they split us into hikers and non-hikers for the trek to the next village. After the trek up the steps, Patrick was no longer interested in hiking to the next village. It is a one to one and a half hour hike in 35+ degree heat with little shade. Darrell and Patrick were disappointed because it would have been an awesome experience, but Patrick is prone to heat stroke and everyone agreed that it would be unwise to tempt fate in that way. Emma was heading on the hike, we were assigned to a different guide, Kiara, for the time being. We headed back down the stairs to the train station and headed to the next village of Vernazza.

We walked from the train station down to the beach in Vernazza. It’s only a few blocks between the two. Kiara mentioned there were three excellent gelato shops in Vernazza. Each one is owned by one of three brothers and they have a friendly competition to see who can create the best gelato. Well, this certainly piqued Michael’s interest. He has been all over the gelato since we arrived in Europe. Kiara showed us where two of the shops were. They are conveniently located across the street from one another. The boys wanted to go swimming in the sea, but we forgot that swimming was an option on this tour so didn’t bring swimsuits. The boys took their shoes and socks off and waded into the sea for a few minutes instead. They thought it would be refreshing in the heat, but were disappointed to discover the sea was pretty warm as well. Once they’d had enough, they came back on land, rinsed their feet, and we headed to the gelato shops. We picked one of the shops and each grabbed a couple of scoops of gelato. It was very tasty gelato. Michael informed us we had to try the other shop across the street as well. We told him that one was enough. We explored the shops along the street and picked up a couple of souvenirs. Darrell found a pistachio liqueur which piqued his interest so he grabbed a small bottle. We still had a bit of free time and we happened to walk past the gelato shops again. Michael pleaded to try the second gelato shop so we caved and let him get some more gelato. He was the only one who wanted any. After comparing the two, he decided on flavor was better at the first shop while the second flavor was better at the second shop. We returned to our meeting place at the train station where we were reunited with Emma and headed on the next village.

The fourth village we visited was Monterosso al Mare. It is the farthest of the villages from La Spezia. It is also one of the largest villages. We had about an hour to explore the village. Emma pointed out a pizza place that makes a ball of dough filled with cheese. We decided to give it a try. The dough was very fluffy and it was very tasty. We explored a few more shops and went into a church called the Mortis et Orationis Oratory. It is uniquely decorated inside with skulls and skeletons. It is an interesting place. We wandered down to the public beach where Michael wanted to go swimming even though we didn’t have any bathing suits. He stripped down to his underwear and headed into the water. It was a short swim as we only had about 20 minutes before we had to meet up with Emma again but he enjoyed his 20 minutes of swimming. We got rinsed off as best he could from the rinse tap near the beach and we headed to the marina. Instead of the train, we were taking a boat to the next village.

We boarded the boat and were off to Riomaggiore. Rimaggiore is actually the closes village to La Spezia, but we skipped it on the front end of the tour. The boat took about 30 minutes to reach Riomaggiore. Along the way we could see the other villages we visited from the sea which was a neat perspective. The “dock” at Riomaggiore is just a rock outcropping on the side of a cliff. Because of this, the boat doesn’t always run to Riomaggiore depending on the weather. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any time to explore Riomaggiore which they warned us about at the start of the tour. We walked the main street from the dock to the train station. We hopped on the train back to La Spezia.

Once in La Spezia, we had another quick bathroom/snack break and then we had a 20 minute walk to where the busses were parked. We boarded the busses and started the two hour drive back to Florence. We were chuckling at the girls from Winnipeg. They were very friendly and entertaining. One of them didn’t put sunscreen on when she should have and was nicely burned on her back. She’s gong to hurt tomorrow. We didn’t arrive back in Florence until about 8:30pm. It was a long tour! We said goodbye to the guides and searched for some dinner. There was a McDonalds across the street from the train station where we were dropped off. The kids begged us to stop there for dinner as they were tired and hungry and it would be quick. We didn’t argue and grabbed some burgers and nuggets for dinner.

After dinner, we made our way back to the apartment and went to bed.