Pisa - Cinque Terre - Pisa

Thursday, May 2nd

After getting Tony D some new reading glasses, and me a Pocket WiFi, we head the Pisa Centrale railway station for the one hour trip north to La Spezia and then the nearby Cinque Terre:

The most northerly of the five fishing villages is called ed Monterosso, and we has a coffee and foccacia just near the railway station:

 

From there we walked south over the fairly steep peninsulas that separate the villages. This is probably the longest and hardest of the walks, but nevertheless there were quite a large number of people doing the same thing as us - and it's only early May!

The second, and I think the prettiest, of the villages is Vernazza:

As you get closer, you can see why:

Like all of the villages, there are plenty of places to have a beer, eat lunch, or just pass the time. Tony W and I had a beer, while Tony D had a pizza - his body clock seems to be on a different schedule to ours:

Tony D was keen to do some more walking, and he convinced Tony W to go with him to the next village - Corniglia. I preferred to take the train down to the last of the villages, Riomaggiore, which I thought looked very pretty from the train window earlier in the day.

By now I was starting to think the villages had lost their innocence, and the thing which made them popular in the first place - their remoteness, tranquility and charm. I had to wonder what they would look like at the height of the tourist season.

But for now, it was bearable, especially with a G&T, some peanuts, and views like this to contemplate:

I took the 5:49pm train to La Spezia, and was coincidentally reunited with my cycling companions - they enjoyed their walk, and I enjoyed my drink.

Back in Pisa, we had another beer at Bruno's, our favourite pub, a nice dinner at the nearby Bagus restaurant, and then to bed.