Riomaggiore first town of The Cinque Terre

It is the first town to most people visiting The Cinque Terre.  The hikers start here, and take the trails from town to town.  Those using trains or a mixture of trains & hiking will use Riomaggiore as there home base, as it is larger and has more housing options, than say Vernazza.  (I still loved staying in the heart of The Cinque Terre!)

Via dell' Amore

If you have heard of any place in The Cinque Terre before this, you may have heard of the Via dell' Amore, the path of love, or lovers path. Pretty famous.   It connects Riamaggiore to Manarola.  Unfortunately, the trail was closed for repair when we were there.  That did not mean we had no hiking or stairs to climb, oh no!  We found plenty of stairs and inclines to go up.

When you get off at the train station, the main road is right there.  So we started walking up the road.  We fell in behind a small tour group of 6 that had a guide with them and figured we would not get too lost if we kept them in sight.

Up we go and the first major place we come across is the Torre Guardiola.  This former fortress overlooks the town and has great views.  We took a few snaps and continued on.



We then came across the Castle of Riomaggiore.  So at this point I should probably tell you all about the historical aspect of the Castle, but really the coolest thing is the view!!  The Castle rests on a hill between to valleys, and has a unbelievable panoramic view -- we stopped and took lots of pics here!

Next we came across the Church of St Giovanni Battista.  This church is built on the highest part of the town, so you can probably guess my favorite thing here -- the view! :-)

Pictures do not do it justice, but we took them anyway. I loved this walk.  There were plenty of places to stop, sit, rest and just soak it all in all along the way.



As I was exploring around at the top, I spotted a kitty, so I followed her, surprised to find a couple small homes!  Wow, I can not even imagine living up here!

Followed one kitty to her home and found her friend waiting for her

For some reason I thought I would check out where these stairs went...

After about 10 minutes of going up, I turned around and took the picture to the left.  I have no idea how far these steps went.  I did not see an end to them.  And I am sorry to report, I do not know where they led in the end.

All along the way there were vines & gardens & Flowers.  People out working on either side of the path on little parcels of land.  Some had gardens with vegetables, some just grape vines, some had beautiful flower gardens.  There were small homes tucked away here and there.  It was fascinating.

I was walking by myself at this point - no Travel buddy, no tour group!  So it started getting a little spooky being by myself.  So, I turned around and headed back down.


Still enjoying the views all the way down!

So that was our time in Riomaggiore!  We really enjoyed it.  As we came back down, CJS & I got separated because I had taken the mystery steps and she had not.  So we were both looking for each other as we walked down the main drag.  It is a small town and you really would not think we would have a hard time finding each other, but it took a while.  Mostly I think because there were many neat little shops and we each were drawn in to different ones to look around.  I highly recommend you leave yourself plenty of time to explore around in Riomaggiore.  There is a lot to see.  Plenty of places to eat there.  We went in the morning and spent the better part of the day there, eating a late lunch before heading out.

This blog entry brings us to the end of the 5 Lands, Cinque Terre.  Next we were off to Lerici.  Neither of us had heard of Lerici before, but we were assured it was a secret treasure on the Ligurian coast........and we were about to find out if we gambled right or wrong for the last two days of our journey.

Hope to see you back here tomorrow for our next and best adventure of this trip!