You start the hike in Riomaggiore then make your way through Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and finally Monterosso. As you make it through each portion of the hike, you can stop in each little town along the way and soak in the atmosphere of these small towns and their smaller ports or watch the old Italian people watch you. I stayed in Riommagiore...
Started the hike at 9:45 in Riommagiore and started our trek on the Vial dell'Amore. This first of 4 legs was very easy. A simple straight shot on the cliffside above the ocean where you can watch the water crashing on the rocks.
There was also a cool tunnel where people left graffiti and messages where I saw a stencil of John Legend.
From Manarola to Corniglia, the path was a bit more difficult because it's where the uphill portion of the trip started to manifest itself, but it was still pretty simple. Leg 3, from Corniglia to Vernazza is where it starts to get tough. This path is a bit more inland as it takes you through the hills, but you can still see the water and the coast. As you go through the hills, the path becomes much more full with nature...the path is no longer paved with concrete, but total dirt and rocks. We were lucky to have some cloud cover on the day we did the hike, so it wasn't too hot.
As we left Corniglia, we saw vineyards...lots of vineyards. Terraces of grapevines just lined the mountainside. This 4km leg was challenging. Most of the path was narrow and there were multitudes of steps up and down the hillside.
My favorite part of the trek is when you can see the church of the next town a good distance away, but it's at a much higher altitude than you are and you realize you have to climb that high. But then as you turn the next corner, you see steps that lead downhilll. Lots of steps...
This path consisted of many of these moments when you would have to go uphill and downhill the whole time. We finally made it to Vernazza where we were greeted with one of the best harbors.
The final leg to Monterroso was pretty much just as difficult as leg 3. Again with more amazing views, but the path was narrower...with trees, flowers, and brush growing all around you. It was somewhere along this leg of the trip that I decided I wanted to utterly destroy the hike, so we turned on the burners and hustled through. But man, I was so out of shape, the hike was tough. The reason why I have so many beautiful pictures on the hike isn't totally because of the great scenery and views, but it's also so I would have an excuse to catch my breath while I took the picture without hurting my pride.
It was also on this leg of the trip that I got semi-recognized for the Monta-zing Ellis jersey I had on (and while shuffling across a narrow path). Some old guy had asked me who was in the NBA finals...I told him LA and Orlando...to which he responded...really? not the Cleveland Lebron's? His legitimacy rose.
One cool part of the journey for me as an engineer were these metal pipes that were running along our paths along the trip. These lines are what they use to transport things easily from one town to another without having to make the hikes.
Another interesting note of this trip is the amount of recycling in these towns. It's one of the coolest things in the world that these 5 little towns on the coast of Italy have clearly labeled recycling bins all throughout the towns that make it easy to recycle. In the big cities like Rome and Milan it was much more difficult to find any way to recycle.
As we finished the final leg and walked into Monterosso, the sun broke out of the clouds on cue. After treating myself to swordfish for lunch, we made made our way to the beach where we got the treat of a traveling band. Awesome.
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