Is this Heaven? No, It's the Cinque Terre. - September 21, Vernazza

Our next day in Vernazza started with enjoying leftovers of the World's Greatest Pizza and watching Italian cartoons in bed. 

First mission of the day was climbing the Castle Doria, a medieval structure resembling a lookout tower on the very top of Vernazza's cliffs. Not only was the tower located literally steps from our apartment, we couldn't pass up the opportunity for a bird's eye view of the town.

Outside the Castle Doria, perched at the top of Vernazza.

Winding stairs to the top of the castle.

View from Doria.

After enjoying the views from the castle, we took the train to Manarola, located on the other side of Corniglia. Manarola quickly became my second favorite Cinque Terre village (Vernazza being the first, of course!) Manarola was tiny, but had amazing gelato and an adorable atmosphere. 

Signs about the village greeted us outside Manarola's train station.

Boats lined Manarola's main street. This one had a puppy captain!

We hiked about 100 meters toward Corniglia, but the majority of the path was closed due to a spring mudslide. At least we were still able to view the town from the nearby cliffs.  

Looking at Manarola, which rivaled Vernazza's brightly colored buildings and quaint atmosphere.

Manarola.

Next we hiked along the “trail” between Manarola and Riomaggiore, the Cinque Terre’s southernmost town. I use the word “trail” lightly, because this was by far the shortest, widest and most level path between any of the Cinque Terre’s towns.

Locks a la Florence's tradition.

Peeking out from a structure between Manarola and Riomaggiore.

Riomaggiore was very small and didn’t have the charm of Vernazza or Manarola, but we walked a few flights of stairs to their marina and found the best lunch of our trip.

We both had wine and amazingly fresh seafood dishes. We barely spoke to each other during the meal— mostly because we were both in slight comas due to taste-bud overload.  

So... what's good here? Oh, everything.

Lunch with a view.

I bought a swimsuit in Riomaggiore and we trained back to Vernazza. Having completed the main trails among all the towns, it was time to relax!

We spent the afternoon laying out on a smooth rock on Vernazza’s beach, adjacent to a medieval church. It was absolutely beautiful. 

Laying out with a good book and a view of this. Is this heaven? No, it's Vernazza.

Brendan taking a tip in the Mediterranean.

Laying out on what we fondly called "our rock."

Before dinner, we walked to the top of the town to have a couple glasses of wine in an open air bar off the trail between Vernazza and Corniglia. We watched the sun set over the Mediterranean while listening to Italian covers of English-language songs like “I’m a Believer” and Nancy Sinatra’s “Bang, Bang”.

I think this photo pretty much sums up the Cinque Terre.

For dinner, we learned our lesson from the day before and made earlier reservations at a seaside ristorante in Vernazza’s center. The meal was very good but the service was too quick! We were starting to get used to our 2-hour dinners at Italian pace and didn’t appreciate feeling rushed. But we polished off a bottle of fantastic local wine which helped forgive the service.

"Hmm... I can't think of anywhere better than this..."

An Italian sunset.

We returned to the room to relax, pleasantly full from the day’s delicious food and sights. We unwinded by watching a dubbed version of Kung-Fu Monk. Even bad English movies are better in Italian.

I wished that we had planned to stay here even longer. The only reason I was able to leave the next day was after promising to return in the not-too-distant future.

After reading these posts, who’s with me?  ;)