The Cube

It feels like I was stuck in Italy eh? But we did leave, in fact Venezia (Venice) was our last stop. Venice is packed full of tourist and seem very popular with Chinese tourist. All the missing in action chinese tourists starting from Florence up, started to re-appear :P

The main transportation in Venice (island) is by foot and water, unfortunately water buses aren't cheap. The standard fare is €6,50 but there are option of tourist travel pass giving option of 12 hours, 24 hours, 36 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours, or 7 days. We bought the 24 hour pass for €36.

Despite Venice is a very touristy place, I like Venice - the cosy, narrow alleys...


... though I am hopeless in finding my way

Walking through the alley ways feels like going around in a big maze...


... with only certain alley way able to connect to the next one...

It was funny how canal cruises are suggested as one of the itinery for a few of the places we went - Amsterdam, Brugge, Paris, Venice. We did not take the cruise but then again, taking water bus in Venice is sort of cruise in a way eh?


And no, we didn't go for the gondola ride. Sis said gondola rides are for couples, if both of us go on one, people will think we are a couple :P


The famous St Mark's Square in Venice, a very big square... not to be missed. Somehow I find it difficult to take a presentable in this square... buildings are too big to be fit in a nice angle or something :(

When we were there, I spotted someone carrying a supermarket plastic bag and I went over to asked him where was the supermarket. We were desperate to find cheap bottle water :P but unfortunately, err.. we can't find the supermarket, no thanks to my lack of sense of direction. Also, supermarkets were closed by then.



Venice is also famous for squid ink pasta (al nero di seppie), it was cook with spaghetti in the shops we saw in Venice but sister said she wanted to try one with tagliolini... think that's the famous one.


We tried twice, but the first one in some bar, looks a bit dodgy :P the whole bar is only served by one man. It is call squid ink pasta, hence the black colour, and yes, it will make the teeth looks black :P (top row, 3rd from left and bottom row, middle)
The rest are some of the food we had in Venice.


And here are some of the biscuits and sweets from a shop in Venice. We wanted to try one and sister took a photo of it, then off we went in to the shop and showed it to a lady manning the shop to buy it :P The lady laughed and told the whole shop! :P

I don't know, but somehow I think Venice has this magic, making you feel at home :)


And maybe, next time if tour guide and I happen to go to Venice, I will get to try cruising in a gondola :P


Side note: Another hour to go... I hope Telstra will not FFK me :(

LOL :P


Side note: Happy birthday tour guide!

It is the largest of the 5 and has long stretch of beach, that is said to be a major attraction to this village. We were there in May, it was not the high tourist season yet. There were quite a fair bit of people but definitely not as crowded yet.



The sand wasn't those described as white, fine sand but I like how mountains are lined up and looked as if it was layered.


We walked to the all the way to the centre of the village...



.. till we stumbled upon a small lane leading to a quieter path of greenery.


At that time, we didn't know where this would bring us, in fact we thought we might be trespassing somewhere we shouldn't be as we were told that the walking paths were closed. However we did walked a bit but turned back, that was probably wise as we did not have any walking map with us.

We then walked back to the train station and hopped on the train to Riomaggiore. Before there... another look on Monterosso.



Side note: *exercising on the neck*

The initial plan was to post village by village from the most south village Riomaggiore, going up to Monterosso. However it seem odd to chuck in Corniglia when the trekking obviously brought us to Vernazza. So, it make it a little organised to put both villages together. Anyway...

It was passed noon when we reached Vernazza. Vernazza is said to be the prettiest of the 5 villages. Maybe that explains as to why among the 5 villages, it was most crowded.


It has a pier and there were many boats nearby. Also, it seems much colourful in this village. We walked about the village and bought some souvenirs. It was fairly difficult to find souvenir that mentioned of 5 terre instead of individual villages, but then again, I guess getting people to buy one for each village is definitely more profitable.


We decided to travel out of Vernazza by taking the train. Train stopped in the tunnel when reached Vernazza, just follow the crowd and you will reached the village :P

Before that, we had pesto pizza for lunch. Yup, there were pesto pasta and now pesto pizza :P It was actually one of the nicest pizza we had by far.


We took the train to Corniglia, the only village that we have not visited then (Monterosso being the first village we visited after stopping in Manarola to check in to the hostel).

One significant difference between Corniglia and the remaining village was that the town centre is much further from the train station. Of course one could still reach by foot, but there were shuttle buses from train station to the town centre. The cinque terre train/bus pass holders travel without further charges.


Corniglia is also the only town not directly on water, it's on top of a cliff.




We didn't stay long in Corniglia, it was getting late and the town was getting quiet. Also we wanted to be back in time during the 'window' period when the hostel opened for dinner.


Side note: High tea in QVB tomorrow! :)

The famous coastal trail leading from Riomaggiore to Monterosso was unfortunately closed due to heavy rain for safety reasons. However there are other trails to track, starting off from Manarola where we stayed. The people from the hostel suggested a trail from Manarola, which the starting point happened to be just further up the road, via Volastra and all the way to Vernazza.


On the way to the starting entry point, we passed this beautiful very mini version of waterfall. There are check points to keep hikers in check to make sure that people are not off the trail. It is in the form of red and white stripe.

At the point when we took this picture, we were near to trail leading to Groppo. Also at this point, I was getting warm from the walks and the jacket was taken off and shoved into the bag.



It was unfortunate about the coastal walk, but mountain views are breathtaking too :)

It was then followed by many, many, many steps uphill and we had to get off the walking trail as certain parts were to be avoided due to possible landslide and closure. We continued the walking journey on tar road... till we saw this.. and we stopped and started snapping pictures :P

These 5 villages by the sea are just beautiful. I believe the view by the closed coastal trail would have been magnificent.



Ah... see that railway track by the sea!


So you see.. the houses in the village is facing the sea with backyard of mountains. Like how those HK tv shows describes expensive mansions.

There was much more of walking involved and by this point, we were a little worry that we have missed the entry point to go down to the village. There were not a lot of cars, even lesser were people on foot. That equal to nobody for us to ask to see if we have missed the village. The story was if we missed the exit, we risked walking all the way to the mountains. Out of desperation, we flagged down a car to keep us in check. :P The driver thought we wanted to hitchhike but hehe.. he was willing to drive us to Corniglia but we declined but were really grateful.


Imagine our joy when we saw this. Yay! It meant that we have walked from Manarola and approaching to Corniglia... just need to hike all the way down.


See the village down at the end? Thats the destination...

But... these were the obstacles...


Verdict? We didn't make it down to Corniglia. The walking path somehow just died off. We reached a point where there just wasn't a path to walk. Our heart sank. It was quite a steep hike down, which translates to... a steep hike back up. So, back we went, retracing our steps and back to the tar road once again...

... till we come to this sign that read, "Vernazza 1 H 7." We have walked to the next village after Corniglia and that was the route we have to take. Going on further will lead to Monterosso if lucky, otherwise, all the way up to the mountains.



This trail was much better. We met slightly more people on this trail. Despite needing us to cross vineyards, bushes ...

And finally we came to Vernazza...


We later found out that the trail to Corniglia may have been closed too due to the rain. So it was a blessing in disguise not having to trek all the way down before coming back up again :)


Side note: Watching Burn Notice on bed...
Phew.. that was a long one...

Lack of pictures on Manarola - both the cameras ran out of batteries.

Accommodations or available rooms for rent in Cinque Terre are mostly up at the hills, involving walking uphill and many staircases.


This is the hostel we stayed at when we were in Cinque Terre. Apparently it probably the only hostel available. However there are heaps of apartments for rent, but demands are high too.


Manarola is surrounded by vines and there's a stream nearby.


Also, where else will you find the train station just by the side of crystal clear blue sea :)



Side note: Alright.. back to my experiment of whiskey and raisin slice (don't have rum...)

Wonder what was in my head when I took this picture, I mean... it looks like I'm trying to take the picture of the trattoria. Probably had some glutton thoughts at that time. Anyway, Via dell'Amore is not this trattoria but actually referring to Lover's Lane or Path of Lovers (along that line), a famous, scenic path connecting 2 villages in Cinque Terre - Riomaggiore and Manarola.


There were loads of padlocks along the way, apparently it is said that if you lock a padlock with your other half, it means that the couple will be forever together... something like that. There were many, many different type of padlocks. I wonder what would happen if say, someone in need of a padlock, somehow able to pick at one of it and uses it :P


It was a relaxing walk along the coastal. Via dell'Amore is actually part of the Sentiero Azzurro (Blue Trail) that leads up to Monterosso. Distance between Riomaggiore and Manarola is likely the nearest as compared to the rest of the village, hence the walk via this path is estimated to be about 20-25 minutes.


Not too sure as to how they calculate the estimated time required but we definitely took longer than that, with all the easy strolling and photo shooting :P
However this is probably the easiest path in Cinque Terre, and young parents can walk with their children with strollers too.

There was sort of a tunnel as part of the walk, and this seat was in the middle of the tunnel.


This is how the seat looks like, with background of padlocks.


Opposite the "seat", there was a poster of the padlocks and usual affair of graffiti on the wall like everywhere else in Italy.

Ah... and sneak preview of the village which we stayed for the nights.


Beautiful isn't it? :)


Side note: *yawn*

Leaving La Spezia town, we took a train up to Cinque Terre. Strangely enough, there wasn't any Asian at sight. There was a trend as we travelled up from Rome. Rome being one of the most popular destination, chokeful of tourist, all over the world. A little lesser in Florence, but Indian tours were noticed. No chinese speaking tours spotted. As for La Spezia and Cinque Terre, my sis and I must be the minority Asian foreigner :P

As rare as it get, we noticed that somehow people don't lug around a fat backpack (we called our backpack 肥仔, literally translate as fat boy). Don't quite understand as to how people manage to stay a few days up in the hills but casually bring a small backpack or a handbag or nothing at all. Umm... so much so that someone actually took a photo of us going up the staircase carrying a daypack in front and the fat one behind. On the way up the staircase, my water bottle dropped, the guy who shot us was worried, told me don't pick it up and he will help me. LOL for the fear that I tumbled down the staircase. :P Anyway, I managed.

Ok.. Cinque Terre - I'm glad we make a stop there and many thanks to Little P for recommending. I would say it is a good break from churches, museums and art galleries. I had fun tracking the trails... lol but pretty sure that time I was panting away. :P


Map courtesy from this website. The nearest village to La Spezia is Riomaggiore. There are walking trails connecting the 5 villages, as well as a train line. The first village we had our pit stop was Manarola as that was the village we stayed for the nights... but I shall start with Riomaggiore, as it being the nearest village from La Spezia.

Riomaggiore reminded me layers of houses, in a beautiful way.


Walking through the village starting from the train station, we passed through alleys and houses, leading to the waters.



And after making a full round, we were back to the train station again....



Side note: Seems like catching the cold comes with craving for pandan chiffon cake... hmmm