Category Archives: Photography

Day 3 – The Way Of Love – and more hot stuff

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Tuesday 16 June 2026 – Did you guess that we would be doing the shorter of today’s walks? I’d say well done, but frankly it wasn’t difficult to work that one out.  The main meat of both of the hikes on offer today was to walk between Vernazza and Monterosso; the options were the coastal path or one which went considerably higher and passed by a couple of monasteries. Given that the forecast temperatures were over 30°C, minimising the inevitable uphill work seemed the only logical choice. Of course, our well ‘ard duo opted for the more challenging course, so the team for our walk was the same as yesterday, except that we would be led by Rebecca instead of Tomaso.

We had a bonus, too: the Via dell’Amore, the Way of Love, a short and mercifully level walk between the furthest village, Riomaggiore, and its neighbour, Manarola, had very recently been re-opened. A landslide had closed it in 2012, and it took until 2024 for the repair work to be completed. Riomaggiore, therefore, would be our first destination as we once again hit the 0849 Cinque Terre Express southwards from Bonassola.

On the way to the station, as usual, we passed the town’s church, Chiesa di Santa Caterina d’Alessandria, which is quite an imposing, if not over-ornate building.

Tomaso had told us that it was now the repository for some religious artefacts that had once been in various other churches in the mountains which were now closed.  We had actually been in for a look around the previous evening, and the inside is a great deal more sumptuous than the outside.

Among the items from other churches are a couple of processional crosses, which require a tag  team of fit young men to carry them on festival days, as they are not insubstantial.

The base is paddle-shaped and fits into a pouch slung over the necks of the carriers, who sway the cross a little from side to side as they go, to make sure that they retain control over its balance. I can imagine one of those crosses would do a lot of damage to someone in the crowd by the procession if they lost control….

The church has a very lavishly decorated and ornamented interior, with some fine stained glass work.

There is some decent trompe l’oeil on view in Bonassola on the walk to the station.

The walls really are only painted, but the illusion of depth is compelling. And there are a couple of nice quirky touches, too.

The train was pretty busy, but we all managed to find seats for the six stops to Riomaggiore, and it was clear at the far end that crowds would be a feature of the day.

We fought our way through the crowded town to the start of the Via dell’Amore, which is a level pathway created along the cliffs to Manarola.

Along the way, there are plaques in the wall.

These are just a few of the many we passed. Our group amused ourselves as we walked along by trying to work out what the link was. There was a strong Graeco-Roman mythology theme – Nereids, Helen of Troy, Cupid, Telemachus and so on. The one that took us longest to work out was this:

Partenope seems to have been the subject of operas by Handel and, amazingly, Ennio Morricone, inter alia. The Handel offering seems to be par for the course for opera, involving unrequited love, love triangles and transvestitism. Various other operas involving Partenope have also been written, but we decided that the important thing was that Partenope was a mermaid siren, whose singing failed to tempt Odysseus, so she cast herself into the sea where the waves carried her body to the bay of Naples; the original Greek settlement there was called Partenope before the Romans renamed it. So the theme linking the plaques was Love. Who’d’a thunk it, eh? The theme was carried on by one of those tiresome love padlock walls towards the end

but at least we had a decent view at this point of the back end of Manarola.

To get to the start of our walk, we had to catch a train to Vernazza, and this was a reasonably fraught process, because the station was rammed. Rebecca had to urge us on to the train very volubly, as the train guards, in an attempt to stop the train falling even further behind time, have a habit of shutting the doors even as people are still trying to get on and off. Anyway, we all managed to get on, for an uncomfortable few minutes up the line to Vernazza.

The crowds were so bad that it took us a while even to get out of the station, and I pitied this poor tour guide.

I think there were about 50 people in her group and she was trying to marshal them and get them out of the station amid all the crowds. We did get out eventually, and the streets were exactly as crowded as one might have expected.

The well ‘ard mob got themselves some lunch, because they would be out all the day

and we pressed on

to the start of our walk.

The “official” time for the walk, therefore is two hours.  Hold that thought. Off we went, at first through the narrow back streets of Vernazza

but eventually emerging on to a path that led – imagine my surprise! – uphill. We got some wonderful views of Vernazza as we toiled our way along.

but the way was emphatically upwards.

You reach a spot where there’s an iconic view of the town

but it took me a while to get that shot because of all the fuckwits who wanted to make sure that the view included themselves.

And still upwards we went.

on a path that was really quite crowded, with people going in each direction.

As we reached the highest point of the path, we passed through a farm where disused terraces had been brought back into operation.

With the terrain as steep as it is in the Cinque Terre region, terracing is really the only way to farm the land – vines, olives, fruit trees. The whole region was once a vibrant agricultural region and a noted wine producer, ever since Roman times. The steep paths leading to and from the terraces were the only way to get between the villages on land, and the journey by sea was often the prime way of getting around.  The railway that opened around 1870 and connected the villages, ironically, was the knell of doom for the area, as it actually made it easy for people to move away, and so the drystone walls retaining the terraces fell into disrepair. Consequences of this were made most tragically clear in 2011 when a series of massive storms hit Europe, including Cyclone Meeno and Tropical Storm Rolf. Some 22 inches of rain fell in the region in four hours, and Monterosso and Vernazza were particularly hard hit when hundreds of tons of mud and debris were washed down through the town. There are some extraordinary pictures to be seen of the devastation and the comparison to the miraculous restoration over a period of just two years. Even now, there are warnings about the risk to this increasingly fragile environment.

The permits we bought, therefore, are an important part of maintaining the region’s infrastructure, and knowing about the floods and landslides goes a long way to explaining why the paths are as they are – with rustic steps that have been added and maintained over the years, as well as tricky passages of rough terrain which demand care to get over.

Another thing we learnt on this walk was the richness of the environment. I had thought that the Cinque Terre was just a set of pretty fishing villages, but actually, according to an info board we passed, “The vegetation of the Cinque Terre is very rich, in fact the list of the superior plants living there counts almost one thousand species, that is about 1/6 of the whole national flora and 1/3 of the regional one.” Agriculture, and particularly viticulture, was the hallmark of the area – the fishing villages schtick was a 19th-century piece of marketing to get more tourists to the region. The vibrant colours of the houses date more from this era than from olden times.

So, that farm represents a significant piece of progress in a hard-hit area.

Rebecca then sprang a surprise on us – a most welcome one – in the form of a rest stop.

The speciality of the place was freshly squeezed fruit juice, as could be seen from the entry

(though it sold beer, which I wish I’d known before I ordered juice) and was the scene of a very strange conversational passage. I was chatting to one of our group when the lass next to me on the other side chipped in on our conversation. Her name was Rachel, she was from Australia but had lived in the UK for a while. So the three of us chatted until the lady from our group went off to find the loo. To keep the conversation going, I fell back on the first rule of small talk, which is “talk about your companion’s favourite topic – themselves”. She was still of working age, so I thought I’d find out what her job was. Rather than just boringly ask “so what do you do, then?”, I asked her what she did to cover the bills. Her reply was “I don’t really want to talk about that”, which rather stumped me. She made her excuses and moved on soon after, leaving me wondering if I’d unwittingly committed some major social faux pas. The rest of our group took the piss out of me something shocking, and Rebecca particularly so, joking that Rachel clearly was on the game and that we’d made an appointment for an assignation later on.

Anyhoo….

It had taken us nearly two hours to reach the rest stop, despite the official hour and a half time on this sign. This was partly due to needing to rest, but also, I think, because progress was slow at times because of the crowds, which really put a brake on progress. (And, yes, gave us a chance to rest.) It then took us a little over half an hour to get down to Monterosso, which we caught sight of soon after the rest stop.

On the left above is the new town, which we’d seen on the first day’s hike, and on the right is the somewhat separated old town, which we headed to down, you guessed it, a steep path.

In several places we passed what Rebecca called a monorail

and that’s what it really is – a transport mechanism for the buckets full of grapes that had been hand picked, that being the only way to harvest in these steep terraces. We soon reached the checkpoint at the Monterosso end of the walk

and headed into the old town for a glass of something cold and some lunch, which included farinata, the Italian chickpea pancake, on offer in this place coming with pesto spread on it. I contented myself with a ham and cheese focaccia.

Rebecca then led us on a brief tour of the old town. Which was

fairly crowded, though not as rammed as the other, more accessible villages in the region. There are a fair few buildings of a religious persuasion dotted around the old town.  Firstly, we passed the main church, the Chiesa di San Giovanni Battista,

with its unusual 18-point rose window, and took a look inside.

It is very ornate, and has an amazing altar.

Next to it is the Oratorio Mortis et Orationis (Death and Prayer) – Confraternita dei Neri (Brotherhood of the Blacks).

The people who worked here wore black robes and provided burial services for the less fortunate and prayed for the souls of the dead.

There’s also the Oratorio di Santa Croce o dei Bianchi, another building very much in the Florentine style,

and also very ornate inside.

Until the 17th century, this was the HQ of the Confraternity of the Bianchi (“Whites”), so called because of the colour of the robes they wore during processions. Their task was to manage the hospital and care for the sick. I am guessing that the model ship hanging from the ceiling is the same as those we saw on the Camino, placed there by grateful sailors who have successfully returned from voyages. Although not entirely rammed, there were still tour groups moving through to add to the general throng.

There were some shops on the main street that offered some attractive retail therapy for some of our group, so while they shopped, I headed back for another coffee and then we walked through the 1870s-era tunnel that led through to the new town in order to catch the train home. In a side niche in the tunnel, Jane spotted this unusual installation.

In the new town, we bade farewell to the beaches

and if you look carefully, in the distance you can see Vernazza, our starting point for this walk. We were headed north out of the region, so our platform was reasonably clear, but the one for the other direction was crowded with tour groups

not all of whom were dressed in the most decorous fashion.

Whatever….

We were soon back at the hotel, and after the obligatory shower and change, back on the terrace for pre-dinner drinks. There was no official hike arranged for the next day; we had a day at our own leisure. I suppose we could have spent it lazing round at the hotel or on the beach, but we didn’t. Acting on a tip from Tomaso, we went for a walk. Obviously. To find out where we went, stay tuned!

 

 

 

 

Day 2 – Corniglia to Vernazza – It ain’t Easy

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Monday 15 June 2025* – I expect you’re on tent hooks, waiting to hear whether we took the easy way today or not. I’m hoping the ambiguity of the headline will pique your curiosity for a little longer.

In the interim, I thought I might expand a little upon the group, as the eight of us, plus Rebecca, Tomaso and Trevor, were beginning to get to know each other better. The most important thing is that the group is one of great affability, possibly because all of us punters are pretty much of the same (“a certain”) age, at least as far as inference will take us, since perish the thought that one should actually ask how old someone is. Jane and I are the only couple among the group; everyone else is a solo traveller, though not necessarily (again, one doesn’t ask) single; and I am not the token male, since there’s one other chap in the group. A couple of them are really well ‘ard and always up for the longer, more challenging of the two walks on offer; among the rest, the exercise preference varies from low to medium. After yesterday’s expedition, Jane and I have decided that we belong in this latter group. A few have some previous with HF Holidays, which makes the fact that they have come on another one a source of comfort to us newbies. Fundamentally we all get on really well, which is lovely.

Our guides are Rebecca,

a Yorkshire lass who married a local (who used to own the hotel we’re staying in, by the way) and who exudes laughter, energy and positivity, and Tomaso,

who is astonishingly knowledgeable about all sorts of things to do with the region and the country, being a qualified guide for no fewer than half of the twenty regions of Italy.

All we had to do was to decide whether to take the longer or shorter walk today. The choice was between an 8km or a 12km walk. In the UK, the longer distance is something we would undertake without pause for thought – on our Camino and Francigena walks, our daily average was 20km. But then again, there was yesterday’s lesson about Cinque Terre walking – the choice is not between “easy” and “hard”, but between “shorter” and longer”.

Reader, we chose the shorter one, from Corniglia, the middle of the five Cinque Terre villages, to Vernazza, its next door neighbour to the north west. And it was still hard. And it taught us some more lessons about walking in the Cinque Terre region. Since we’d started in Monterosso and gone northwards, yesterday’s walk had not actually been in the official Cinque Terre region, a national park which extends south-east from Monterosso down to Riomaggiore. So, today’s walk was our first walk actually in the Cinque Terre National Park.

I had had a sort of hazy mental picture of our week spent on reasonably gentle strolls between neighbouring villages which were only a few kilometres apart. After all, if you go on to Garmin Connect and request a hiking route across all five villages, you get this:

Admittedly there’s a lumpy bit in the middle (the coastal path is closed at the moment due to landslides, so you have to go into the hills), but the whole thing is 15km and involves less than a kilometre’s ascent. It’s just a stiff day’s walk, surely? What could possibly go wrong?

Quite a lot, as it turns out. For example, you need a permit. Who knew? Rebecca had given us a slip of paper on yesterday evening’s briefing which she said was absolutely necessary to be able to do today’s walk, and that we absolutely must not lose it and absolutely must have it with us at all times. (It’s still wedged in my phone case, a week later; I must get round to digging it out at some stage.) It was a dual-purpose pass, allowing us unlimited rail travel between the villages as well as entry to the Cinque Terre, which, as I’ve said earlier, is a National Park. I just hadn’t realised that its National Park status meant that access could be restricted.  The paper that Rebecca handed out was a two-day permit for the park plus a two-day rail pass for the area. A fairly important piece of paper, then.

As well as the pass, we were given a warning about pickpockets, who can be active around the stations. The advice was not to wear the backpack, as things could be taken, literally, behind your back.

Tomaso was our guide for the day, and one of the first things he told us was some background about getting between the villages. Initially, the only way had been by sea, until Victorian times, when railway tunnels were bludgeoned through the hills that separate them. (This sounds like a good idea but, ironically, wasn’t, as I’ll explain in a later post, if I remember.) Today’s railway doesn’t follow the original rail route, but the principle is the same; the railway is the best way to get between the villages and the journey from one end to the other takes just a few minutes. By road, it would take ages, on roads so rudimentary that Google Maps won’t actually suggest them as a driving route. On foot, as we discovered yesterday, it’s hard work involving walking up at least one steep hill and then down again.

Most of the villages are coastal villages, which stretch along river valleys perpendicular to the coastline back towards the hills. Our starting point today was Corniglia, which is the exception, because the lowest point of the village is about 90m above sea level – it’s perched on a hillside. Its train station, however, is at the same level as all the other stations – near sea level. So, having taken the 0849 “Cinque Terre Express” train from Bonassola to Corniglia, which was busy but not ridiculously so, the first thing we had to do was to get from the station to the village. This involves walking to the end of the platform

and then up some steps.

Let me just emphasise the steps for you.

Those are the visible ones, but, like Groucho Marx’s principles, there are others, and these can’t easily be seen. I believe that there is a bus service, but our hardy group of five decided that we should walk up. I counted the steps, mainly to distract myself from the rigours of the task at hand, or rather at foot.  At exactly 100 steps, there’s a bench, but it was occupied by a chap who was selling tat, or who would have been had he not been busy talking on his phone. At about 150 steps, one gets this view back, showing that there are still vine terraces in operation today.

At about 250 steps, there’s another bench

and it marks about two-thirds of the way up. From here, you can see the back end of the next Cinque Terre village to the south east, Manarola.

I counted 380 steps, which agrees approximately with one of the official versions of how many steps there actually are. A sod of a lot of ’em, that’s for sure.

We took a short stroll round Corniglia, stopping outside its church, Chiesa Di San Pietro.

From the outside, we could see stained glass

so we looked in.

The Cinque Terre villages are in the Liguria region of Italy, and one of the architectural characteristics of the region is a widespread use of trompe l’oeil to decorate the buildings. There really is very high quality work on display.

The shutters are real, but the brickwork is painted.

Being so high up, there are some nice little vignettes on offer to the alert photographer, such as this one,

whose colours and composition particularly appealed to me. The town itself is picturesque

with some original shopfronts still visible,

and it soon becomes clear what local produce the town is proud of.

The town has a pretty central square

with a First World War Memorial statue at its centre which has a rather haunting visage.

We stopped for coffee at a recently-opened, modern coffee shop

which provided coffee Italian-style, meaning very tasty but not hot enough. I think Italians view coffee as something you neck in passing rather than a treat to be savoured (there was nowhere to sit in this place), so no matter how often one asks for it “molto calda”, it comes only lukewarm, which is a shame.  It’s also about time that the flat white was accepted among Italian coffee shops, as this is easier to ask for than a latte macchiato con doppio espresso.

We continued through the picturesque corners of this pretty town

getting occasional views along the coast back towards Monterosso

and up the hills to the village that has grown up around the Church of the Madonna of San Bernadino.

before embarking on the real meat of the day’s walk, meaning some serious uphill work. Tomaso helpfully explained the scope of what we had to achieve, which was to get up to and past that blue house.

Yes, that one, there.

Hard work in prospect, therefore, but it did mean that we got a good view back down to Corniglia.

It also meant that we formally entered the National Park, so we had to show our passes at a checkpoint

where the strictures placed upon us were laid out,

including being abjured to wear suitable footwear.  We were all in proper walking shoes, but apparently there have been cases of people in flip-flops actually being fined! I had considered walking in Teva sandals, but was (correctly) persuaded that this was not a good idea.

Off we went, then, on a well-marked path,

which shows that the entry fee does go towards maintenance and other support infrastructure.

The path was initially some reasonably gentle steps,

but which soon became less well-structured

and considerably steeper, leading both up and down.

But mainly up.

The ascent worked us hard on a hot day (temperatures approaching 30°C) but at least gave us striking views back to Corniglia as we moved along the coast.

We were by no means the only people walking on the track,

but as it turned out, this was, relatively speaking, an uncrowded day.  We were on the sentiero azzuro, the blue path, which is probably the most popular walking route between the villages. Tomaso told us that it can get very crowded, to the point where, on some days, the authorities only allow walking in one direction. So we were lucky – just enough people to allow our “good manners” to enable a bit of a rest now and then to let others by.

We passed an installation called the “Third Paradise”

which was a rather pretentious tribute to the intersection between the natural and human worlds or some such tosh. Colourful stick, though.

We’d done the uphill work by then, so when we came to this,

“Il Gabbiano”, The Seagull, which markets itself as the half way point, the natural thing would have been to declare some kind of a rest stop. Sadly, Tomaso seems immune to these sorts of blandishments, and so we carried on, starting our descent past a (closed) tourist information office,

another possible rest stop

where we could even have had a game of darts had we so wished,

or joined a teddy bears’ picnic

but we soldiered on regardless. Again, we got a good view of Monterosso further up the coast

and then embarked on quite a steep descent.

If you look carefully. you can see people on that path down there. Yes, you can.

Down and down we went.

envying the people having a nice cool swim in the cove below us,

but our flagging spirits were revived with our first sighting of our destination, Vernazza.

It’s a very attractive scene. At one point, looking across, we could see that there were people on top of the watch tower.

Soon thereafter we passed the exit checkpoint for the trail

and arrived in the town

the main streets of which were rammed.

At this point, a comment by a Swedish friend of ours suddenly made sense.  When she noted we were headed here, her comment was, “Ah, yes – the touristy Cinque Terre”. The advice we’d been given about pickpockets also began to resonate, too.

At this point we gained some benefit from not having stopped at Il Gabbiano, as we had over an hour in which to take some lunch in Vernazza. Looking around, it seemed that there were precious few restaurants which could fit us in, but Jane had spotted a small, shady terrace outside a place called the Lunch Box

where there was room for us to partake of a focaccia, a glass of something cold

and a visit to the facilities (well, facility, singular), the entry to which was engagingly disguised.

As well as today’s walk, we were scheduled to visit one of the other Cinque Terre towns, Manarola, a couple of stops down the track, so we cast ourselves back into the melee

and headed for the station, where it really did make sense to take one’s backpack off to be sure it wasn’t rifled. What with a really crowded platform, delayed trains and the importance of getting on a train before they shut the doors, Tomaso managed to get us onto the wrong train and so we got an impromptu tour of La Spezia station before heading back to Manarola. Just outside its station is a very striking mosaic,

round the outside of which are painted a variety of species of fish.

The town itself was pretty

and, yes, crowded.  A theme begins to emerge, here.

Tomaso led us on a quick walk around the town, past the harbour where lads were showing off by jumping off a rock,

to a wonderful view back across the town.

From this point, looking the other way, up the coast, we could see our original departure point for the morning’s walk, Corniglia, and get a further sense of the walk up from the station to the town,

enjoying the schadenfreude of seeing lots of others toiling up the steps where this morning we had suffered. Finally, we walked past a status of Our Lady Of The Grapes

and, stopping only for a Basil Gelato, caught the train back to Bonassola. We were pretty tired when we got back to the hotel, so a rest and a mug of Twinings finest Earl Grey were very welcome.

So, Rule 1 of the Cinque Terre held fast – the walk might have been only 5.5km, but it was hot and hard work; and during the day we were introduced to Rule 2: it’s crowded.

At the pre-prandial drinks briefing, we were offered a choice for the next day’s hiking – a long walk between Vernazza and Monterosso or a short one (Rule 1 told us that neither would in any sense be easy). It will not be difficult for you to guess which one we opted for, but you’ll have to read the next post to confirm your theory. See you there!

 

 

*  Look, I know that today’s date is 22nd June, a full week later than the walk described above. I apologise for the lacuna, but the days between then and now have been so full-on that I haven’t had time or energy to do my usual daily write-ups. I hope that your being able to chuckle at our discomfort at slogging up and down steep hills in indescribable heat makes up for my dilatoriness.

 

Day 1 – Monterosso to Bonassola – A baptism of fire

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Sunday 14 June 2026 – I suppose Jane and I thought that we were well ‘ard, as we had elected to go on the harder longer walk, despite the warnings from Accuweather that the expected temperature of 25°C would “feel like” 30°C. We had a leisurely start at 0945, and we used the time beforehand to wander into the village to buy fodder for a packed lunch. I was hoping to get a cheese and ham focaccia, similar to the delicious one I’d had at the Caffé delle Rose the previous day; and Trevor had pointed out a couple of recommended focacciarie for us to try out. However, the process wasn’t as straightforward as I thought it would be (well, it’s Italy, after all). We walked into the first one and looked at the array of various slabs of focaccia laid out and weren’t quite sure how the system worked. So we went in to the second one, and it was exactly equally not obvious as to whether a ham and cheese focaccia might be available. Of course, being British, we couldn’t actually ask, so we simply looked for something that might be vaguely tasty (which meant all of the varieties on offer, let’s be honest) and pointed at it. Thus we walked out with an olive focaccia for me and a tomato and anchovy number for Jane. Not what I’d had in mind, but likely to be decent sustenance if it could withstand being jolted up a hillside.

Our lead guide, Rebecca, gave the whole group a briefing before we set out and the two groups, five punters in one, two in the other, split to their various walks.

(The chap in the white stetson lookalike, by the way, is Trevor, the tour manager.)

In any case, both routes started the same way, with a walk that went as far as Bonassola Station, just five minutes away.  Our group, led by Tomaso (in the blue and white check shirt above) took the train to the next town, Levanto, and changed to the grandly-named Cinque Terre Express in order to go one more stop, to Monterosso. This is the most northerly of the five Cinque Terre villages, and the plan was for us to walk thence back to Bonassola. Here’s a map of the area, thoughtfully provided by HF Holidays, which gives an overview of the essential geography.

The five Cinque Terre villages run from Monterosso to Riomaggiore

Monterosso is split between an old town and a newer part. We would see the old town later in the week, but we started off by walking along the front of the new town.

As you can see, the companies that make beach umbrellas have rich pickings in these parts. One wonders what the procurement process is like and whether there’s cutthroat competition between rival makers of umbrella cloth.  The serried ranks of identical umbrellas indicate private beaches, at which one has to pay for one’s shelter. The less structured umbrellas indicate a public beach area, where access is free of charge. Unsurprisingly, this was somewhat better patronised.

On the right hand picture above, the headland is the barrier between Monterosso and Levanto, over which our route would take us, so we headed off in that direction. En route, looking back, we could just catch a glimpse of one of the other Cinque Terre villages along the coast – Vernazza. More of that later.

We stopped to admire a feature of a villa that had quite cunningly been built into the hillside;

a giant statue.

We had originally thought that he was Hercules, but apparently he’s supposed to be Neptune. Interestingly, he is cast in concrete, rather than chipped out of stone. He looks angry, but actually he is absolutely armless.

Having passed Neptune, our path started on the uphill track that, sighing, we realised we’d have to deal with. As ever with the hard work, there are some decent views to be noted. And used for a rest stop to gather breath, of course.

Eventually, we arrived, panting somewhat, at a spot with a splendid view of Monterosso al Mare,

and, looking further along the coast, one could see the outcrops of other Cinque Terre villages.

Vernazza in the distance

Corniglia on the cliff top, Manarola and Riomaggiore beyond it

On one of our (frequent) pauses to draw breath, Tomaso drew our attention to the signposts that marked the route.

The figures shown are not (as I’d hoped) distances in kilometres but actually time (in hours) to the various destinations. Our first destination, then, was Levanto, allegedly one and a half hours away. What could possibly go wrong?

At first, not so much. We had a decent path, with small steps in it,

but these gave way to steeper sections with less regular steps

and it was a relentless, hot, sweaty and uncomfortable climb for some of us. Soon after the signpost shown above, we reached another.

If you check back, you’ll see that even after all that bloody sweating we had seemingly made no progress from Monterosso and yet Levanto was further away. Without wishing to attribute stereotypes to any nationality (perish the thought that a British person would do such a thing), this did seem a very Italian approach to distance estimation.

This morning brought home, in the most dramatic way, the first lesson of walking in the Cinque Terre.

It’s sodding hard work.

Further, if it’s warm, it’s hot, sodding hard work. Jane and I walked the Camino Frances, which was long and a bit tough in places. Then we walked the Via Francigena, which we found really quite hard work, particularly across Tuscany. This was another level; steep, sometimes actual steps, some of which were quite substantial, and sometimes just bloody tricky to get across.

But did we complain? Well, yes, actually, we did. There was quite a lot of swearing going on among the less fit among us and only some of it was under people’s breath. Yes, that included me. A couple of our group, Tracy and Douglas, were perfectly fit and springing along; the other three of us were, frankly, suffering. But we toiled on, and eventually got to what was pretty near the high point (geographically, rather than emotionally speaking) of the trail, where there were the ruins of a hermitage, San Antonio del Mesco,

which we thought would be a great spot to stop for a bite of lunch. Sadly, a bunch of others had had the same thought

but we managed to find a spot in the shade where we could sit, take a drink and a snack, and rest a while.

The trail after that was a bit up and down but, tricky parts aside, was more or less flat, which was a pleasant change from the relentless uphill,

and after a few moments we reached another place to stop and rest a bit more,

an Italian National Trust place called Podere Lovada, or Lovada Estate. Tomaso had mentioned that it might be possible to get a lemonade or some such, on surrendering a few Euro, so I was expecting some kind of rustic farm. It was much more formal than that – basically a National Trust Gift Shop, with its own produce and other souvenir items. And beer!

It also had a delightful place out the back

where we could sit and finish off our packed lunches.

That was a wonderful break, but all good things must come to an end, and so we eventually moved on into the hot end of the day – and the downhill end, too. There were a lot of steps to get down, once again, some of which were not inconsiderable in size. It was quite tough work, but I was pleased that my knees supported me OK – not without complaint, you understand, but also without actually giving way underneath me. Part of the route led through Holm Oak (or Holly Oak) woods

which provided some welcome shade as we toiled downhill. Before too long, we got our first sight of our first target – the town of Levanto.

As we approached it, we passed a quite remarkable house, whose architect might well have been taking some ideas from Gaudi. The first hint we saw of the property was a figure in the garden.

There were other idiosyncrasies: a fountain decoration;

a lamppost decoration;

a wall decoration;

and some very unusual architectural touches.

All in all, it was quite a mad place

and absolutely wonderful to see. It is clearly possible to rent it, as we had a chat with a lady in the grounds, who said that it was her last day there before she had to move on, so she was making the most of the surroundings.

Then, thankfully, we reached the outskirts of Levanto, marked by a  castle

and a church tower.

We went into the town past the church of St. Andrea, which is very much in what’s become known as the Florentine style – alternating green and white, which may be Carrara marble and Serpentine stone, or may just be a paint job.

In the case of this church, the façade is genuine but the tower is painted. Interestingly, the rose window has 14 segments, which is not the usual number.

We carried on into the town, past buildings which featured the local marble in their construction.

Tomaso explained (if I understood correctly) that this was local stone which, though it wasn’t the calcium carbonate that gives rise to true marble, it was a hard stone which it was possible to polish to a lovely shine, and hence was called marble anyway. One place was neatly named

but we didn’t stop there; we pressed on towards the centre of the town, where we stopped for a (very, very welcome) glass of something cold.

By this stage it was getting quite late in the afternoon, and we still had to get back to Bonassola in time for the all-important 6.30 gin and tonic briefing about the next day.  It would have been theoretically possible to walk over the headland to get back to the hotel – Tomaso estimated it as being about two-thirds the effort of what we’d already done. Fortunately, there was an alternative, which was a completely flat track through a tunnel. Even the fit guys thought that this was the preferable option, so, refreshed, we set off towards it

and had our last look back to Levanto

before disappearing into the tunnel.

As you can see, it’s a well-maintained, delightfully level surface, suitable for walking and cycling between the towns. It was originally the tunnel for the railway that had been built in Victorian times, and some sections of it were quite long,

but it enabled us to get back to the hotel with (just) enough time to get out of our sweaty gear, hose ourselves down and present ourselves for the replacement of essential fluids and the briefing about the next day’s expeditions. That over, we went once again to Si Và for dinner, after which we met our Italian/Arctic friends Agnese and Karlo for a very agreeable catch up over G&Ts in a local bar. It was lovely to hear about their escapades, which included camping out on a volcano in Guatemala and other madcap episodes. It was a latish night after a full day* and we were glad to get to bed to try to recharge for the next day’s exertions.

HF Holidays always make sure that there are two options for walking (as well, I suppose, as the third, which is to do bugger all), and Rebecca and Tomaso explained each of the options so that we could make the decision as to whether to go long or short – hard or easy.

Guess which one we went for? Even better, come back tomorrow** and find out.

 

*  It might have been only 13km, but the total ascent was over 500m; the first 300m ascent was achieved over just 1.8km, which represents an average gradient of 1 in 6. So there!

**  Erm…it might not actually be tomorrow, you understand. This week has been so full on that I haven’t been able to keep up with posting each day on the events of the day. I apologise for that, and will try to get updates to these pages as soon as I can after each expedition.