Vernazza, Cinque Terra

Travel Diary Continues....!

I'd heard much about Cinque Terra since initially stumbling on a photograph of Vernazza on Google Images and knew it was somewhere we simply had to visit on our roadtrip through Italy.

The Cinque Terra are a collection of five small villages dotted along the Western Italian coast, built steeply up the cliff-face with rows of cheerful bright houses and walking paths connecting each village.

Annoyingly we turned up on the Sunday of an Italian bank holiday, which meant that as well as the usual amount of travellers to the area (it has become quite well-known and touristy) there were also all the Italian day-trippers, which meant it was almost hard to breathe in the little town where we had booked our room! I would definitely recommend checking against dates before travelling here, because the day after everyone had left it was really pretty and chilled out.

Out of the five villages of the Cinque Terra, Vernazza is definitely the town to stay in - in our opinion it was the most beautiful, and it has a great collection of restaurants overlooking the ocean, plus all the backpacker type stuff like bars and internet cafes. It's definitely a place for young people, there were absolutely loads of 20-something American groups, and it seemed like a lot of people had been able to get temp-work there during their travels at the bars as when we stopped for a drink here and there was a real sense of community, so I'd recommend it if you were backpacking through Europe and wanted to meet other young people.



Be warned, prices were a bit of a shock to us again after leaving Barga - meals in Vernazza and the other Cinque Terra towns are similar to Venice, so you're looking at 18 Euros for a main meal. Our tip is go for a "primo platto" (first plate) as they are more reasonable prices (between 8-10 Euros) and are not the kind of tiny starters you would get in England. We ordered a soup for Lee and a spaghetti bolognase for me with a basket of bread and that was plenty for lunchtime. As no-where in Vernazza does B&B you need to get breakfast at one of the bars or restaurants, so if you weren't careful you could easily rack up a bill of about 100 Euros a day on meals.

We'd also recommend booking one of the more reliable rooms in Vernazza way ahead - the Cinque Terra doesn't have hotels as such, everything is people's private rooms which they let out (of varying quality!). The guy we'd booked our room with never showed up, so we were left stranded with our suitcases. Fortunately there are absolutely masses of rooms available in the area, and we had several people approach us and offer accommodation. We ended up paying 100 Euros for one night in a not-so-nice room, so be warned that it's important to choose somewhere with good reviews (on tripadvisor) like La Mala. They were fully booked when we asked, but if I could have booked further in advance we would definitely have stayed there. You definitely get what you pay for. Their rooms are near the top of the village and overlook the sea, which makes the whole experience a lot more peaceful!



I know when I was looking into staying in Vernazza I was also concerned about the parking available there. We did end up driving right down to Vernazza itself rather than parking outside the villages and getting the train in as suggested to us. This worked out okay - there were spaces in the car park (13 Euros per day), but the drive is certainly not for the faint hearted!! To get to Vernazza you need to drive down a one lane road with a sheer cliff face on the other (some parts with barriers, most without!). Makes for some spectacular views, but if you meet another car coming up then you might need to get your partner out of the car to help you reverse as we did! Quite petrifying, but very satisfying at the end!!