Waking up on Wednesday morning, we had a choice to make. Despite a risk of rain, we decided to head north to Cinque Terre -- 5 small villages on the Italian Riviera. It was our favorite part of the entire vacation.

Cinque Terre is made up of the villages of Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and Monterosa. The villages are small and unspoiled, built on terraced cliffs overlooking the sea, with stone walkways winding throughout the towns. The most popular activity is to walk to the trails connecting the 5 towns; at a leisurely pace, the towns are about an hour and a half apart.

The weather ranged from light/moderate rain to sunny, so we had most of the trails to ourselves for both days. We based in Vernazza, but spent much of our time hiking and visiting the other towns.

We continued our routine of waking up early to buy bread, salami, cheese, olives, and wine for our lunch, and we even hiked down to the sea to have a picnic on the rocky shore. One night at dinner, we had a great conversation with an American named Matt, who is a civilian contractor in Iraq. He gave us the idea to hike north of Cinque Terre, and on the second day we hiked north to Volestre and took a ridgeline trail back home.

Ofoto Album: Order prints, see more pics. Requires a login.
Cinque Terre: (65 Photos)