Cinque Terre. Feb 23

Cinque Terre is national park in Itally on the Mediterranean. Cinque Terre refers to 5 pretty towns on the  coast of Italy: Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore. These towns are linked by a series of trails built upon the ancient terracing for vine growing. The region specializes in white wine. The wine is produced from a must containing at least 40% of the Bosco grape but may also contain up to 40% of Albarola and/or Vermentino and up to 20% of other white-berried grapes approved and/or recommended for the Province of La Spezia. The wines tend to be dry, with straw yellow colour, and a delicate aroma.

Much of the trail follows the ancient pathways that have always linked the fishing villages. The trails are arduous and are all currently closed (Feb 23 2014) because of damage from unusually high amounts of rainfall. We saw some local itallian people hike the entire length of some of the closed trails. We hiked around some of the towns and part of one trail that wasn't closed. We took the train to 4 towns for a fine day in sunny Italy. We hope that the national parks efforts to maintain the trails are successful because they are truly beautiful. Some of the towns have been damaged in flooding and mud slides in the last several years and look a little worse for wear than they looked in photos from just a few years ago. 

Here is the view from our hotel in Spezia which is a very nice town at the south entrance to Cinque Terre.

The beach at Monterosso, the only one of the towns in the park with a beach.

Monterosso

Leaving Monterosso and on our way to Vernazza.

Looking back at the beach in Monterosso. 

Old school terracing for the grape vines on hills between Monterosso and Vernazza.

Rivers run all through the region, especially this year.

A gorgeous veiw, that hand rail is not as sturdy as it looks and it didn't look very sturdy.

The terrain over which the path traverses.

This is cute bridge but it's cuteness doesn't quite shine through and the shots from other angles didn't work because of the light.

This bone was in a wash that crossed the path, its a left foreleg of a now extinct type of sheep that was common here at the turn of the last century but dissapeared in the 50s due to pressure from wine growing and predation by a mysterious monster called La Chupa Cabra. Or is it?

This is a narrow section of the trail.

Steep too.

Every once in a while you get a glimps of the next village. This is Vernazza.

Old guy tending wine vines.

The view changes as one approaches the village.

After carrying baskets full of grapes on one's head to the wine press for a couple days, over the treacherous trails, one might work up the courage to drive this death trap out to the fields.

Flooding this year and ground soaked with rain washed a large part of this house down a small river.

You can see the route the machine takes up the side of the hill and decide for yourself if it is a death trap.

Same location from farther away.

Down into the town of Vernazza. Each house has a front door at ground level and three floors up has a back exit also at ground level. The houses were set up like that so the occupants could escape from Saracen pirates who atacked the villages regularly back in the day.

Church in Vernaza

Edge of a cliff.

You can see the path along the edge of the water just outside Manarola.

Main stree of Riomaggiore.

The part of Riomaggiore.

Us lost in Rio.

The view from the ultra light aircraft we used to take the bone of the extinct sheep back to our lab for testing and carbon dating. We found the sheep bone was probably from the last sheep to sucumb to the Chupa Cabra.

Or maybe this is one of Yoly's best shots! Town of Vernazza and Monterosso in the distance.