Cinque Terre - another Italian tourist scam
Visiting new places should be a pleasant experience... So Cinque Terre is a place that should be visited with lots of reservations and tips! Otherwise, the pleasure of the trip will be 0!
On the Internet, these Five Lands are so touted that being in northern Italy on the Ligurian coast of course every tourist puts them in a mandatory visit ... Is it worth it? It may be worth it, but be prepared to have 10 times less fun than expected).
Tip 1: If it is more important for you to get photos, rather than emotions - be sure to visit all the cities.
Cinque Terre (Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso) and Portovenere are tiny colored "cities". The main thing to know is that they are all super photogenic, hence the many beautiful photos on the Internet.
Tip 2: If you still want to see such an Italian town, but with minimal effort - limit your visit to Portovenere, that will be enough!
At least in Portovenere you will be able to drive to the waterfront itself. At the end of September there were plenty of parking spaces. The traffic around the city is organized one-way. That is, even if there are no spaces on the waterfront, you can drive towards the exit of the city and look for parking. So it will be cheaper, but the truth will have to go down / up. To explore the waterfront, 1-2 hours at a leisurely pace will be enough! Parking on the seafront is about 1,5 euro/hour, you have to pay as you park.
Tip 3: Settle in the suburbs of La Spezia, within a radius of 20-40 km
If you decide to visit all the cities, you should not stay in La Spezia. The prices are overestimated, and in the city to do nothing at all! The promenade is port, cargo... whatever, but not promenade. You have to drive to the center of Portovenere anyway. When visiting Cinque Terre, you can use the free parking in La Spezia. It is important to arrive early in the morning, at least before 10 o'clock. After that, there is no room. Paid parking is easy to find from 0.5-1.5 euro/hour. After parking your car you should go to the train station to buy train tickets / Cinque Terre card. From La Spezia you will go straight to the first town of Riomaggiore in 10-15 minutes.
Tip 4: Cinque Terre for free is a reality!
At the train station of La Spezia you can easily find the "little box" where tickets for Cinque Terre are sold. The cost is about 16 euro/person if all inclusive, 8 euro/person. - without the train, only the walk-through. An all-inclusive ticket accommodates unlimited train travel throughout the day and trail passage. At first glance, everything seems logical, but... the Love Trail from Riomaggiore (town 1) to Manarola (town 2) (notorious on the Internet) has been closed for five years and the opening date is in the clouds. The trail from Manarola to Corniglia (town 3) is open until halfway. Even if it were open, the views are WOW!!! The road goes along the water in the open sun (photo below). In other words, there is nothing to pay for!
So, back to the free visit to the Five Lands. The Cinque Terre train is the "sprat wagons." The photo below shows a section of the platform with people on it. The entire platform with so many people! Similar attraction with the train was in India!!!, but this is kind of Europe - Italy) Even if there were inspectors, they simply can not pass on the train ... It is safe to "climb" on the train at La Spezia station and go to Riomaggiore. There were no inspectors anywhere, not on the train or on the platforms (2019).
Riomaggiore (Riomaggiore) - half of the city fits on the photo, the other half on the other side))
Not even a place to walk or sit. The overview of the city took 15 minutes! The love trail is closed. In the photo below is a boat - the number of people on it discourages any desire to ride... We go to the train station and drive on to Manarola. It's getting close to lunch time ... people are arriving in droves!
Manarola - the photo shows the whole city, but there is already a place to walk for 30 minutes))
If it were not for the number of people, you could say you even liked it here. The town is already "big" and there is a trail with overview views of the town itself and the trail to the town of Cornilla. You can't get very far on the trail, it's closed due to rockslides. To the next kitchen garden Cornilla (town 3) is definitely a train ride. Then you have to change to a bus or walk up the steps on foot. Corniglia has no access to the water, it is a town on top.
However, the number of people in Manarola was so annoying that we decided to go straight to Monterosso! People are walking back to back!!! You can still see this on the Plitvice Lakes in Croatia. So we skipped Cornilla and Vernazza. Judging by the pictures from the internet we didn't miss much)
Monterosso - what's so remarkable about it? Nothing!
Nature is usually beautiful as in many other places in the world, such as the Marmaris region in Turkey. There is nothing to see here.
Is Cinque Terre worth a visit? It's definitely not worth it to come here especially! If you have a tour along the Ligurian coast of Italy, you can come here. But we advise you to take into account at least a few tips to avoid disappointment...
- Beautiful pictures will be definitely, bright emotions are unlikely.
- Of all the cities you can visit Manarola (2), Vernazza (4), Riomaggiore (1), in descending order. The towns of Corniglia (3) and Monterosso (5) can be skipped. Plan your visit as early as possible so that you will have seen most of them by 12 o'clock.
- It is better to travel exclusively by train between cities.
- Portovenere can act as a substitute for all the cities of Cinque Terre. Visiting it, you will get an idea of such cities. It is more comfortable to get there.
- It is ideal to see Cinque Terre in the first half day and visit Portovenere in the second half. That's if you want to see everything as much as possible. You can not visit La Spezia at all.
- Pay attention! Cinque Terre can be visited for free!
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