Admittedly, I won’t sell all my worldly goods to move to Cinque Terre (CHINK-eh Tair-uh), even if I could take loads of Italian train rides, but I will definitely be going back to spend more time trekking further afield.
The “Five Lands”, as translated, are five former fishing villages all perched on the mountainous eastern Italian coastline. They are beautifully quaint, but their real draw is the hiking trails connecting the towns. For a long time, Cinque Terre has been more agricultural and touristy than fishy, and most of the boats today are used for excursions, not for the catch of the day.
There is technically a road by which you can reach CT, but most guests come in by train or boat. Lots of cruise lines and other groups make it a day stop, but adventuring would have to be compromised to do so. And I had adventuring to do!
The towns are connected by one main path that requires a parks pass, broken into 4 unequal segments. While they are not easy trails, they are considerably more moderate than the expert trails that wind their way up and down rocky hills to smaller hamlets. The pass comes with an unlimited day pass for the train, with the idea you could go from one end to the other, and then ride back. In 2014, the two southernmost towns lost their main paths to landslides, making the train or alternative paths necessary.
We had an ideal location in Monterosso town, with a short walk with luggage to our hotel, a long stretch of beach with a Colossal Neptune holding up a cliffside, good restaurants and shops, and more importantly, laundry. And being the northernmost town, it was an ideal spot to start our trek.
Our of cursory politeness, I invited Wes and Piper to join us. Then Kyla, Dwayne and I set out to conquer Cinque Terre on the drizzliest day of our stay. I prepped for this, realizing later that I had just become my father, with practical convertible easy-dry pants, a rain jacket, my sun-rain-mosquito-netting hat, and no style.
Is Cinque Terre a hike with amazing views, or great views you trek to? Either way, our rocky up-and-down path took us past waterfalls, through vineyards, orange and lemon groves, treescapes, over arched stone bridges, and up cliffs overlooking a turquoise Mediterranean where, I swear, I could almost see fish swimming. The paths included lots of steps and rocks, which kept the mud down. It took us less than 2 hours to get to the next town, which was a great place to have focaccia-as-street food before heading to the next town, which was oddly both more kilometers and less time. We took a break from the rain by calling it lunchtime, so I could pour over the maps and choose the next route as a workaround for the next two closed main paths.
Kyla was a trouper who did about 7.5 km on the longer, tougher trails with us through rain and mud. The girl knows when to quit while she’s ahead, though, and took the train by herself back to the hotel*, and Dwayne and I rode to the next town to avoid the closed 3rd segment. But between the last two towns, there was a 1.4km trail that I wanted to do to complete our Cinque Terre day. The map rated it “moderate”, the same as our first two trails, so easy-peasy. Right?
We spent the first half of that trail vertically crawling. One might generously call vertical crawling “climbing”, but no, it wasn’t that dignified. I felt more justified when we got to the peak and saw this sign:
I immediately embraced the “expert excursionist” moniker, and shared it with the newly engaged couple we met on the way down. You never know when you’ll meet fellow excursionists and we had the most lovely chat, as we descended to the town of Riomaggiore together. They were staying there and showed us the good gelato and the best spot for pictures.
By the end of the day, Dwayne and I had 29,000 steps (19km), just a thousand shy of our Petra record.
The trails are supposed to be fully reopened in 2026. Who will be an expert excursionist with me in a few years?
*To tell tales: Piper and Wes can leave a hotel, navigate to two grocery stores, get lunch, and find their way back to eat junk food and play video games all afternoon. Kyla can follow the couple we connect with to get on the train and off at the right stop, then get so lost in her book that she can quote important passages almost verbatim, give a character analysis, and discuss if and what tropes are used, before texting us to say she can’t find the hotel that is 50 meters in front of her. We all use our brains differently!
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