Northern Italy

[wadesworld]

Cortina is a low key gem with a lot of hiking opportunities. Planning a return next year
Cinque Terre is too busy now but years ago it was enjoyable. We arrived in Monterosa for lunch and my friend a Swiss Italian called the hotel Porta Roca inquiring about rooms. He was told none were available and asked me to wait 10 minutes and call again. I borrowed the restaraunt's phone and called. I was asked how many I required and reserved two. My friend said that they believed him to be Italian and refused to accommodate him. When we left I was told I was now on the list and eligible to come back. Delightful place and our room had a balcony right on the trail to Vernazza with a Mediterranean view.

Cinque Terre was my absolute favorite part of the trip.  It was busy, but that didn't bother us.  We had some amazing meals there.  One of the days we took the train to Riomaggiore, got on the ferry that stops at the other 4 towns besides Corniglia up to Monterosso, and hiked back to Corniglia from there.  As others have said, it's basically just stairs straight up and down the coast so it's not like it's a simple stroll, and it was July so it was incredibly hot.  But totally worth it.

We got an AirBnB in Corniglia and our host was amazing.  She was an older woman and told us she would meet us where the shuttle dropped us off in the middle of the town.  We gave her a time, but the train we were coming in on was delayed and she was trying to tell us what other train we could get on, and once we got there she was trying to take our bags from us and wheel them along the brick, uphill pathway and carry them up stairs, but we were able to convince her to let us carry them.  I think accidentally messaged her when I was trying to message the AirBnB host at our next stop and she replied a couple days later apologizing for not seeing the message and sending "Big hugs" our way.  She gave us restaurant recommendations that were great and told us about the "beach" (aka just giant rocks you can lay out on and a little docking area for kayaks and small boats) that the locals go to rather than the one the tourists go to and we went there to cool off.