This blog post is going to be a little bit different. As you know, I usually post about five to six things about each city from what hostel I stayed into public transportation option but since Cinque Terre was a very sudden and quick move, it was a day tour from Florence and thus, I will talk to you guys about my experience. If you read my blog post about Rome, you guys know that I cut my Rome itinerary a day short and added that to Florence. Well, Florence is a small city, two days were going to be more than enough so, I decided to do a day tour from Florence to Cinque Terre with a company called Walkabout Tours. Until that day I thought Cinque Terre was the name of a town in Italy but in reality, if you translate that to English, word for word, it means five towns. Cinque meaning five and Terre meaning Town. It’s called Cinque Terre because it’s a group of 5 towns that make up this beautiful area mostly known for its colorful painted houses in Italy and from the information that our tour guide gave us, it’s a UNESCO world heritage. People living in this area must paint their houses in those specific bright colors.
It was a hiking/walking tour and I made quite a few friends on the trip. Our tour guide would meet us at the Santa Maria Novella Train Station at sharp 7 am and I was just about to miss the tour. I left my hostel on time but then I stopped at a coffee shop across the train station to grab a coffee and a quick bite. It took forever for my order to come because it was the morning rush hour. Once I got my coffee, I started walking towards the train station and of course, a tram was about to pass by so I couldn’t cross the street until it left. While I was trying to cross the street, I could see a big group of people gathered and I assumed it was my day tour group, they all started heading somewhere and as I saw this, I ran to join the group and barely made it. I asked a couple of that were among the last ones walking if that was the Cinque Terre day tour and they happily replied yes. I walked with the group to our bus which was taking us to a small village right outside of Cinque Terre. While we were walking to the bus, I met Nadie, she was from Dubai and was also traveling solo. We talked pretty much the whole bus ride, after arriving at the small village, the group caught a train to one of the first towns that are included in the five towns, and let me tell you something, that train was jam-packed. The view you get on your train ride to the first town is beyond breathtaking, the government has built tracks right alongside the water body. After arriving at our first town, this is where our actual hiking began and it wasn’t bad at first, but as we walked more and more, it got harder and harder, mean at a point, we were climbing endless stairs and rocks. Once we got to the top, which was our second town, it was lunchtime. While Nadine and I were hiking up, we met this couple who were probably in their late 30s to early 40s and they were probably the coolest people we met on the tour and let’s not forget that they could hike way better than the whole group. If I remember correctly, they were the first ones to reach the second town. We talked about so many different things and turned out they were from New York?! It was about time I met people from the states. This whole time, I’ve either met a lot of Australians or Canadians. They told us how they love traveling and how amazing their journey has been traveling together. Since they had reached the lunch spot before us, they saved Nadine and me a spot with them two. Pretty amazing right? There were two options for lunch, some non-vegetarian octopus dish, and the other was vegetarian pesto pasta. Fun fact: the restaurant makes their pesto sauce fresh every day. We exchanged some great conversations at the table throughout our lunch, and before we knew it, it was time to burn all that we ate. For people that thought the hike was over, it wasn’t. That was just halfway. We walked to our third and fourth town and this is where we all jumped in the blue crystal-clear water and had some gelato. There is a shop and I can’t remember the name but they have a cinnamon flavor gelato that’s to die for. It reminded me of Cinnamon rolls back home in Chicago, it was so good that I had to go again. REMEMBER: These towns are very small and don’t accept credit cards, so, wherever you go there, please take cash. After the gelato, we had our boat/ferry ride to our fifth town, the town that’s known for its famous colorful houses picture. Yes, the one that’s all over the internet. We got dropped off at that town and were given about 2 hours to just explore and do whatever we wanted. While we were on the boat, Nadine and I met a few more people, Vale and Lucy.
If you know me, you know that I always try to recreate the picture I see on the internet and so, I pretty much risked everything and started climbing the rocks with my camera in one hand and phone in the other. At a point, I slipped and one foot went into the water soaking up my perfect white shoes, but I did make it to a spot where I got an amazing picture. Looking back to that picture, it brings back so many memories. While I was trying to get this picture, Nadine, Lucy, and Vale cheered me on from far away because they knew how badly I wanted that picture. Isn’t it crazy how you can connect to some people after being with them for less than 24 hours? Post the picture, we all sat by the beach and saw the sun going down and it felt like our two hours were over in moments. it was time for us to catch our last train out to the town to go where our bus was parked at. It was Nadine’s last day in Florence so she had left to continue her trip further. The friends I made were amazing, in fact, Roslynn, Nic, Lucy, Lizzie, Vale and I actually met up in Florence for dinner and to watch the lunar eclipse. Before dinner, we all watched the sunset from Piazza Michelangelo. All of us still follow each other on different social media platforms and share our traveling stores from time to time. This hiking day tour with walkabout tours was beyond my expectation and I couldn’t be more satisfied.
- You can book your day tour to Cinque Terre from Florence here: Link
- Remember: Bring cash and a pair of swim shorts if you plan on jumping in the water at some point
