2000 Steps - Cinque Terra

I went to Italy last weekend with a friend of mine, Grant. We had a blast climbing, what seemed like tons of stairs! We left early early Friday morning and arrived in Cinque Terra around 10am. When I mean early, I mean our train left at 4:30am!! It was great sleeping on a train and waking up in Italy... We arrived at our hostel and followed a young man up up up up up stairs to our hostel - which is where the view above is from! This is Riomaggiore, the first town.
Cute huh? These are 5 coastal towns located on the Italian Riviera - known for honeymooners and hikers - we joined the masses of American college students and Italian tourists for a three day adventure in this little region of Italy.
After getting to our hostel, we decided to begin the treck. We hiked the Via dell'Amore to Manarola which took us about 20 minutes. It was absolutely beautiful and quite adorable too. Lovers had written their names all over the walls of this walkway - and the cacti too!

These towns are situated in and around cliffs. Above is the bench which is famous along this walk. We reached Manarola and wandered through this little town - in about 10 minutes. But it was still cute!
So incredibly colorful too

Our next hike was from Manarola to Corniglia - about a 1.5h hike. Again, beautiful!
Manarola in the background!
See Mom! It's hard to explain!
So, we got to Corniglia, but as you can see from this sign, we had to climb a few stairs....

yes, that says 382 steps!!
Corniglia

We saved this hike for the next day
After being incredibly exhausted, we took the train back from Corniglia. We noticed the signs to the Marina in Riomaggiore and so we decided to check it out


Riomaggiore
:-D It is actually a national park too and this national park is completely eco-friendly. They use trains and eco-busses to get everywhere and have placed recyclables/trash cans everywhere. It is actually very refreshing to see this. We came back that night incredibly exhausted because we had been awake since 3am, we crashed and got up early to go hike from Vernazza, town #4 to Monterosso al Mare the 5th and furthest away town.
We got off the train to Vernazza and fell in love! This was probably the cutest - in regards to shopping that I had ever seen. It also had this great castle/tower at the top.
With views of Vernazza!
Then we began the trek UP! This is how I managed to get these pictures...climbing MORE staris!
In this picture you can see about how far away each town is from each other
Monterosso - where we were heading! We got pretty high up

The stairs that were going to be the death of me
Finally making it to Monterosso!!
Just stumbled upon this guy...
We was carved into rock!
My fascination with old men continues -

He was painting a mural on the side of a building - incredible
oh the Cats....they were everywhere!! We made some friends
Many many painters - I am excited to bring back some little drawings that I got while I was in Vernazza
There were fishermen everywhere too.
It was so much fun. We joked the entire time that we were on our honeymoon; apparently the place is a big honeymooning place. I didn't really realize how much of a hiking place this was, so I ended up wearing jeans the whole time...so suggestion - bring hiking clothes!!
Parco Nazionale Delle Cinque Terre