Exploring the Cinque Terre

Thursday Aug 25

Sigh, another sunny day, another breakfast overlooking the ocean, how much can one take? After our hike yesterday we decided that it would be a good day to take advantage of our train passes and revisit the towns we hiked through yesterday so we could explore some more. Here are a few random shots from the day.

After some exploration we headed back to our air conditioned room for a bit of a siesta, and to escape the heat. Then it was off to the beach......we decided to bring our goggles with us to see if we could spot anything under the water....we did

Then I swam over a bit to take a picture of Il Gigante, it's a statue of Neptune that was made in 1910 by an Italian sculptor. Sadly it was damaged by bombs in World War 2 and he lost an arm and his trident, but it still looks quite impressive.

Being the ham that I am, I couldn't resist the obligatory self portrait looking back towards the beach....I actually have a whole album of self portraits from everywhere I go.

For all of our friends back at work who were worried that we would miss pizza day today, don't worry, we didn't :-)

After a light snack, lol, we got all cleaned up and hopped on the train again to explore Riomaggiore a little more. We didn't realize that there was more to it than the train station, and it was certainly worth checking out.

Then it was back onto the train to return to Monterossa. We decided to try out a restaurant that the owner of the B & B had recommended and it didn't disappoint at all. Linguini with fresh lobster, some more veal scallopini, salad and local wine. Then it was a sunset walk along the waterfront capped off with some VERY GOOD gelato.

Time to rest again. It will be very hard to leave here in the morning, but at least we're headed to the Swiss Alps. Ciao!

A stink hot hike

Wednesday Aug 24

We woke up to yet another gorgeous day. Opened our door and picked up a few more ripe lemons to add to our collection and then went up to grab our breakfast. We elected to eat outside on one of two terraces with a view of the olive grove and the ocean. Can't decide what was best, the view or the automatic machine that made any kind of coffee drink you wanted, over and over again.

The morning view:

We made the short walk to town, stopped at a shop to get some water to fill our hydration packs and then walked to the train station to pick up our trail/train passes. There is a small fee to hike on the main trail between the towns, and for a few euros more you can get a train pass that is good for unlimited travel between all the towns of the Cinque Terre. Once we had our passes we were off.

The main trail links each of the 5 towns. Each section is a little different, and unfortunately one of the sections is closed right now (between the 3rd and 4th town) because of a landslide earlier in the year. There are a series of higher trails, and trails that link the two. A lot of people just do one or two sections at a time, going back to do another section another day. We decided that we wanted to tackle the whole trail in one go.....and we elected to go from north to south, which is the harder direction to go in.

The trail has existed for years and was once used by the locals to move supplies back and forth, as well as the tend to the crops of olives, lemons, limes and grapes that cover the hillsides. The first two sections between Monterosso and Vernazza, then Vernazza and Corneglia are said to be the hardest as you climb from sea level far up the terraced hillsides and back down again. To say that the views are spectaculcar would be the understatement of the century....here are a very few of the shots from the first part of the trail.

Looking back on the old part of Monterosso as we leave:

Jo on an easy part of the trail

Looking back to where we started from pretty high up

The view coming down into Vernazza

When we got to Vernazza we spent some time exploring, it s really neat town with ferries coming and going and people wandering around taking in all the sites. We filled up on fluids and had some grapes and hit the trail again....the thermometer was climbing, it was already 38 degrees and we were sweating buckets. The next section to Corneglia was challenging as well, but the views were equally rewarding. Here is a shot coming into Corneglia, it isn't at sea level, it sits above the water on a point of land....if you look in the background you can see Manorola.

Closer to Corneglia

Normally the walk from Corneglia to Manorola isn't that hard, but that is the section that is closed. We wanted to do the whole trail so we took a detour which took us straight up to one of the mountain towns through steeply terraced vineyards. We gained a lot of elevation in a short period of time. Here is a shot taken part way along the detour, you can see Manorola in the distance.

It seemed to take forever to make our way down to Manorola, but from there the last part of the trail is a cake walk. It's litterally a paved sidewalk linking the last two towns, but it has a name, and some tradition to it.

We made it to Riomaggiore, hot and tired. Normally the entire trail takes about 5 hours to hike. We had to do the detour which added quite a bit of distance and elevation gain, but we were pretty pleased that our total hiking time was only 4 hours...total distance of about 14 km. And we did learn one valuable lesson along the way.....in Europe they sell water with gas or without. When you put water with gas into your hydration bladder and hike up and down a mountain, it expands quite a bit....the bonus is that the water shoots out under good pressure, lol.

We hopped on the train in Riomaggiore and took the quick ride back to Monterosso and made out way back the our B & B to shower up and relax a bit. Then it was back to have another lovely dinner on the ocean. Spaghetti carobonara, veal scallopini with local lemons, insalata mista, some local wine and tiramisu to finish it off. Not a bad way to end the day, and to replenish after the hike. Then it was back to relax a bit more under our lemon tree.....ah la dolce vita!

If it's Tuesday, it must be Italy

Tuesday Aug 23

Before leaving Alpe d'Huez I had to have a pain au chocolat so we stopped at a little bakery I know in town and grabbed a few goodies. We also posed for a few pics at the finish line of the climb...not the real finish where Le Tour ends, but where people who do the ride can stop and go into the Tourist Office to get a certificate saying that they rode up the climb....maybe next time.

Down that crazy road we went and then drove through another amazing valley headed east. We made our way down out of the Alps, passing some amazing scenery along the way, then eventually turned and crossed the border into Italy. After a few more mountain passes we hit flat ground and got onto one of the big highways. It was pretty boring, but we were able to do 130 which allowed us to cover ground quickly.

After passing Genova we drove for a little bit before turning off the highway and onto a small road down towards Levanto. Just before we got there we turned onto yet a smaller road to get down to Monterosso Al Mare. It was quite the drive, but our Fiat was up to the challenge. We found our way without a single wrong turn, thank goodness for the GPS.....gotta love technology. We had to be at our B & B by 6:00 or we risked losing our room. I had predicted that we would be there by 5:30, and at 5:25 we were on the last stretch. We turned down the road that the GPS told us to and we couldn't find the place. The road was so narrow that even turning around in a small car was a challenge. Eventually we parked and started to walk up and down, it sure didn't look like the brochure! We found a place with the right address, Jo rang a doorbell but no one answered. I kept looking at my watch at the time ticked away. "This isn't right' I said, and we hopped back in the car and backtracked a bit. We drove down the last road again and spotted a little sign that was hidden by some branches. We turned down the little road and after passing a sign that said Private Road we wondered if we were on the wrong track again. Just around the next corner the place came into view.......

WOW, we found a piece of heaven on earth! We checked into our room and were blown away by the place. The place is built in the middle of an olive grove which is still actively farmed. Our room has a spectacular view of the ocean, and we have our own private garden patio complete with a lemon tree.....every so often a huge juicy lemon drops to the ground and we scoop it up :-)

Here is the view:

After settling in we decided to go for a stroll and find something to eat. Monterosso is the only town in the Cinque Terre with big sand beaches, so it's very popular with the sun worshippers.

We strolled up and down the pathway that runs along the ocean for a while and then decided we should find something to eat. We'd read about a place online that people raved about, it was called Miky's. We got to sit on the patio out front and it didn't disappoint. We had read about the seafood risotto so we ordered it, along with a bottle of the local wine.....yum hardly works!

They had some other fresh seafood as well...

We ended up sitting between two elderly couples, one from Australia and the other from Luxumberg. We shared stories, wine and Limoncello, and had a wonderful evening. And anyone that watched The Tour de France this year knows the irony of us sitting between a couple from each of those countries, especially after we had just been in Alpe d'Huex. After and amazing meal we wondered back to our oasis to get some sleep before the big hike tomorrow.

Our first hike in the Alps

Monday Aug 22

After a great sleep we got up and had breaky at our hotel, mmmmm great coffee and the croissants melt in your mouth. We geared up then went for a short walk to fill up our hydration packs with fresh mountain water and then started our hike. From the town of Alpe d'Huez we ascended a nice trail that lead us to a series of trails which made their way past 5 stunning alpine lakes. We did a fair amount of climbing, and it was hot - the hottest temp I saw on my watch was 38.6 degs. But the views more than made up for the effort....here are a few of the many pics that I took today, but they really don't do it justice.

We arrived at our turn around point, we can in search of the Wizzard, but sadly, he wasn't here :-(

We took a different way back down that treated us to some amazing views along the way. At one point we got buzzed by the local Search and Rescue patrol, it was pretty cool.

It was hot and we had been out for about 4.5 hours, so we knew that we needed some food and drink. We decided to find some shade and have a French picnic. We stopped at a local store and picked all of this up....for about $10....you certainly can't do that at home!

After our picnic we headed out of town in another direction to check out some ancient ruins....I believe they are Roman, but have to confirm. There was a whole group of students who are currently excavating more ruins. We climbed up a hill to check out an ancient church site, as well as an old fortification, that was used to keep an eye on the valley.

On the way back to town we checked out what has been called the worlds scariest airport to fly into and out of. It's a short strip that is perched on the side of the mountain. The runway is on an insane angle, you have to land flying towards the mountain, and land on a runway that slopes up. Then you have to take off downhill and hope you have enough speed before you run out of runway and plummet several thousand feet. The pics aren't great, but Google it or look on YouTube....the guys that fly into and out of here have some serious balls!

By now we were pretty spent.....20kms of mountain hiking and the temp was never below 35. Nice cold showers then we went out for a quick bite to eat. Oh yeah, most of our hiking was at over 2,000 meters. We did ok considering we just came form about 80 meters above sea level, and the jet lag. Now it's bed time.....tomorrow, we're off to Italy for some time on the Med.

And so it begins

Last time we went to Europe we left early in the morning....between the flights and the time changes we were totally fried when we got there. Driving to our first location was an experience. This year we tried something different, electing to fly at 7:00 in the evening. It worked out great! I took some melatonin before the flight and was able to sleep off and on through most of the trip to Frankfurt. We had a few hours to kill there, Jo flaked out on a row of chairs and got some sleep. A short one hour flight to Lyon, with Lake Geneva and the Alps outside of our window and we were ready to hit the road, bright eyed and busy tailed.

We picked up our car, a nice little Fiat Punto that goes like stink and has awesome breaks...they'll come in handy on some of the mountain roads we'll be on. It was only an hour and thirty minutes, the last part through a really neat valley, to arrive at the town of Bourg D'Oisans. To anyone that knows about cycling, this is the Holy Grail of the sport, it's the start point of the legendary climb up to Alpe d'Huez. I've been here twice before to see stages of the Tour de France, but this was Jo's first trip. She couldn't believe the drive, or that people actually ride up it, let alone race up it. We found our hotel no problem at all, it's a great little chalet with an amazing view. Our room is on the second floor, with a great balcony.

After settling in we headed out for some local cuisine. We found a great little spot that served up a wonderful meal. Escargot, steak and veggies served on a hot slate, potatoes that were to die for, and a nice bottle of wine. At the table beside up they had huge pieces of meat hanging from some kind of spit, it looked very tasty. Here's our dinner...

After our meal we rubbed our bellys as we walked back up to our hotel for the night. Here's a few shots of the view from our balcony. You can see some mountains, some remnants from Le Tour, and an outside skating rink with real ice. That's right, the NHL can't maintain good ice an it indoor arena in the southern states, but France can have out ourdoor rink that has perfect ice in 38 degree heat today.....hmmm.

And now it's time for a few more melatonin, and a nice long sleep. Au revoir!

We're off again

Eurofest 2011 starts today......wheeee!

An easy day

We were pretty tired after our long hike so we decided on an easy day today. We grabbed our gear and hopped the train the Wengen and took the cable car up to Mannlichen. We decided to try another way to Grindewald today, the little two seater cable car was an awesome ride. It took about half an hour and we spotted many cows, goats, and even a number of Swiss marmots running around on the slopes. We also had a great view of the Eiger, and the Rotstock, which we had climbed a few days before.

Jo's new friend in Wengen

After arriving in Gridewald we hiked for an hour or so along one of the many rivers in the area. It was nice and relaxing after our previous days adventure. Eventually we arrived at the Gletscherschlucht, which means Glacier Gorge. It lies beneath the Grindewald Glacier, and the lake that it's run off forms. Years of glacier run off have carved an amazing gorge. For $7 admission you can walk for well over a km into the gorge. In places you are on platforms which are bolted to the sides of the gorge, in other places you walk through man made tunnels. Along the way you can see pink and green marble in the rock walls. There is a quarry nearby. There is also some great information about a huge tunnel which was made several years ago leading up inside the mountain to the glacial lake...it's a sort of pressure relief valve to prevent the lake from overflowing into the valley below, an affect of global warming.

Here are a few shots from within the gorge

After the gorge we hiked back to Grindewald and picked up some picnic supplies at the Co-op (local store). We got some grapes, local cheese, sausage, wine, gummy bears and paprika chips (like our BBQ). We decided to take the cable car back up to the ridge and have a picnic. Part way up we could see that the weather was turning so we had part of our picnic in the cable car. When we reached the top the weather had totally come in and it was pouring rain like I've never seen before. We only had about 300 meters to go from one cable car station to the other in order to get back down off the mountain and into our valley, but we got soaked!

At least it had stopped raining by the time we made it down to Wengen and then back to Lauterbrunnen. We made our way back to the hotel for a hot cup of tea, and then ended up staying in and having the rest of the picnic for supper. Another great day, even with the short downpour.