18 June, 2015

Vernazza is absolutely gorgeous.  It is an undeniable truth, and it is where this post takes off.  Among the bright alleys and beach umbrellas, amongst the wafting aroma of fresh pizza and sea salt, I decided that Vernazza is one of my favourite places on Earth.

Having arrived and internally freaked out at the sheer beauty of the place, I descended the hill as quickly as I could (while managing to take many photos) to reach the heart of town itself.  And let’s be honest, when you need to enter through an alleyway like this, you know that the destination is promising:

After a chance meeting with a delightfully sweet and friendly Aussie mum-daughter couple and a lovely chat in which we shared our respective travel stories, I took a walk through Vernazza to check out what the tight, windy streets and colourful façades had to offer.  Vernazza is an incredibly vibrant place – imagine, stores overspilling with gorgeous ocean prints and paintings, copious amounts of pizza being served in restaurants on all sides, a beach-side fuse-ball table provided for public use and hundreds of people milling about the beach side.

Vernazza also offers new views in the form of Castello Doria, which now consists principally of a small tower which peeks over Vernazza and gives one the opportunity to see the town from a perspective other than that classic looking-down-from-the-mountain view.

The tower is quite cute and offers seaside views as well, so it’s a winner all-round!

Castello Doria

from the Castello

Having eaten my pizza, bought a postcard, and spoken to a lovely Italian lady about the gorgeous paintings she was selling, I made my way to the train station.  There are frequent trains which run between the Cinque Terre for most of the day (yay!) so I purchased a day pass, knowing that I would inevitably tire of hiking and that the train was my only chance if I wanted to see everything before the day was out.

Next destination: Corniglia!

What’s to come, you ask?  Sweat, stairs, gelato, and train delays.  Yay!  Keep posted for the next instalment!