Cinque Terre + Hiking

We went to Italy!! And now we’re home from Italy! 😉 I’ll be sharing a myriad of posts and photos over the next few weeks, including the amazing destination wedding I got to photograph! Today I wanted to share one of our favorite stops on our trip: Cinque Terre. I had barely heard of this area of Italy before we started planning; all I really knew was that it’s the really hilly area with 5 tiny towns. We ended up picking an Airbnb in Monterosso and completely loved the little village and our incredible view from our cottage! Our most memorable day was when we got to hike! There are crazy/insane trails through the steep mountains, connecting each little town. The trails used to be the only way to get from town to town (our Airbnb host was an older man and said he can remember those days!) The first leg of the hike, from Monterosso to Vernazza, ended up being much more intense than we imagined, but we had a ton of fun anyways. It was about 65 degrees and a little windy while we hiked, and I can’t imagine doing it in any hotter weather! Whew! Here are a few photos from the hike, and after are more photos from our time in Cinque! 
The trails were super narrow at some points, and at other points you were looking straight down a cliff! 

This is a view of Vernazza from the trail and… the only part of Vernazza I liked. It’s a favorite among a lot of people, as evidenced by the much larger crowds than the rest of the towns. Let’s just say it was much prettier from up above.
These skinny trails were two-way (!) so we did a lot of flattening ourselves up against the side to let people pass!

The views were OBVIOUSLY worth it. 

The next photos are mostly iPhone pics of our 3 days in Cinque!

This is a picture of our Airbnb and also the crazy cobblestone pathway down to the town. It took about 15 minutes to walk down and the hill was so steep! People live here and walk up and down these hills every day and it kinda blows my mind.

We stopped in Manarola for an afternoon and loved their boardwalk area. This was also where we saw the most insane waves! The sea was so rough the whole time we were there.

Is it strange that our favorite meal of the whole trip was a cauldron of white wine and lemon steamed mussels? We went to this restaurant a second time just be able to eat them again 🙂 
This is my favorite photo. Since we stayed in the furthest-away town, you can see all the other ones off in the distance! Overall we liked Monterosso and Corniglia the best out of the 5 towns. Corniglia was where I was introduced to basil gelato and I’m not even being dramatic when I say my life will never be the same.

I hope you liked these! I’ll be sharing photos from Florence later this week <3 S