This was the day I was waiting for. We were up early and on our way to Cinque Terre (meaning “five lands”), in northwest Italy. It’s part of the Italian Riviera, just south of Genoa and is included in the UNESCO World Heritage Sites. We were going to visit 3 of the 5 villages that dot the coastline.  Above are some villages we passed  on the bus ride over from our hotel in Monticatini Terme.

We drove through La Spezia on our way and from the hillside as we were entering Cinque Terre you could see the port.

The first village we visited was Manarola, considered the oldest of the 5 villages. The primary industry here is wine-making and the vineyards are on hillsides. The tour bus dropped us off at the top of the hill and we walked down towards the water. We stopped about halfway and I noticed the guy sitting on the balcony on the top left in the above picture. What an amazing view!

We took our time going down and noticed all of the little details of this small town. I could see the ferry coming into port.

Our 5th church was the Chiesa de San Lorenzo which was completed in 1338.

The water comes down from the mountain and runs under the street here. We could here it running at certain spots.

As soon as we got down to the water we all ran over to the other side to admire the village and take pictures (we were all typical tourist).

The town was very festive but was a little crowded this morning.

One last look as we took the ferry to the next village.

We arrived at Vernazza on the water and this was our first view. After having yummy gelato we headed over to the church (the 6th one we visited) on the far left in the above picture.

The Chiesa di Santa Margherita di Antiochia was built in 1318 and was fairly simple but the view from the windows was amazing.

One last look at Vernazza as we left on the ferry to head to our last village.

Monterosso was our last village to visit and the largest of the 5.  It’s also the flattest and was easy to get around. We had the afternoon here and got some pizza for a late lunch and tried the farinata di ceci (chickpea pancakes) that were amazing.

The streets were colorful and many of the buildings had stripes.

The 7th church we went into was the Confraternita dei Neri Mortis et Orationis and was built in the 17th century.

The views here were amazing and from the far end of the beach you could see the other villages across the water.

We did not have to walk back up the mountain to get back to our bus.  We took the train out of Monterosso and our bus picked us up and drove us back up and around the mountain to get back to our hotel later that day. The above is the view of La Spezia from the bus as we left.