Vernazza, Cinque Terre.

Cinque Terre is a beautiful place to visit. A well-planned trip can allow you to save time and cost of travelling as well as place to stay, thus I am writing to share the tips on how to plan for your travel.

Cinque Terre consists of 5 villages; Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso al Mare. Browse the Internet to get insights on which village that suits your preference.

When to visit – It depends on your preference. Most travellers prefer to visit in the summer to get the best weather for swimming and lounging on the beach. I visited Cinque Terre in early Spring ( a bit rainy, I have no choice as I took the chance of visiting the terre after the book fair), and and I wasn’t planning on swimming at all. When traveling with a group of friends, it’s a fantastic idea to stay in a beach villa for rent to enjoy privacy and comfort.

Airports near to Cinque Terre – The closest airports to travel to Cinque Terre are Pisa, Florence and Genoa. I did mine from Bologna as it was my base during the book fair. Consider adding a touch of elegance to your travel experiences by booking a Belmond train Peru tour for a luxurious adventure.

Transfer to Cinque Terre. From any airport above, get to the nearest train station (Centrale) and buy ticket to the village of your preference. Bear in mind that, you have to change train more than once. In my case; Bologna-Parma-La Spezia-Corniglia. My train ticket fare from Bologna to Corniglia was €19.15. Ticket from Florence – Pisa – La Spezia – Corniglia for €14.90. If you take a train from Pisa Centrale, it will be just around €11.40, above an hour ride with route Pisa-La Spezia-village of your preference.

You can check train schedule and fee at Trenitalia website and buy online. You can either print your ticket or just use your mobile phone and show your booking code to the ticket inspector. More info here on ticketless purchase. If you are not buying online, you can still use the schedules to plan your itinerary.

Reminder: train ticket must be time-stamped in a machine at a station before you get on the train. If you do not time-stamp the tickets, you could just keep on using them for many journeys, so there is €100 fine for travelling without the ticket having been validated. However, this only applies to ticket that could be used on more than one train (regional train). If your train ticket is for a specific date and time with an assigned seat, you do NOT need to validate it at all, since it can’t be used again anyway (city train/fast train).

Place to stay. I use booking.com because I like to change my mind a lot. I always opt for room that I can cancel in case I found cheaper room, and opt to pay cash.

Online connection. I bet you would want to share your photos online. I bought a WIND local sim card; that cost me 30 Euro, with 5GB data plan. It worked fine around Italy but however, the network did not work while in the La Spezia region. My network got disconnected after La Spezia station and only got it back after leaving La Spezia two days later. My advice; get a room with free Wi-Fi connection. Or you can buy Cinque Terre Card to get WI-FI internet connection in the Park’s Hot Spots. If you get to Vernazza, you can buy the Wi-Fi from Internet Point shop at Via Roma (the main road). If you get to Corniglia, free Wi-Fi can be obtained easily at any cafe around the square. You just need to dine-in or have coffee and ask for the password.

Things to do in Cinque Terre.

a. Taking photos is a must. Just be prepared with a good camera/smart phone. Make sure you bring along extra battery, charging cable and plug adapter. Do wake up early to capture the sunrise and do not forget to capture the sunset too.

Views from a terrace at Corniglia.

b. Hiking any of the trails is a popular thing to do while visiting Cinque Terre. Some of the trails might be closed. These are the available trails during my trip: Corniglia – Vernazza and Vernazza – Monterosso. Check updates on the trails here.

c. Before you go on hiking, you need to buy Cinque Terre cards  from the Info Counter at the village train station or at Information Center at La Spezia Train Station.  There are 2 types of card: Cinque Terre Trekking Card and Cinque Terre Card Train Multi-Service. Check Cinque Terre National Park website for more information on the cards.

If you prefer not to buy the train card, it is OK too, you can just take the train to next station for 1.80 Euro (one way) and explore the village.

d. And oh, do not forget to bring a good hiking shoes. And lots of water. I saw many of the hikers using hiking stick, you can bring that one too if you like.

Places to eat – For Muslim, there’s no halal places, Pakistani or Arab restaurant/cafe around Cinque Terre. You can opt eating seafood or vegetable pasta or salad. Or you can buy breads and spread, and eat it in your room or pack it in your bag. Here are some Italian words that can help you in selecting your food; verdure – vegetable, pollo – chicken, manzo – beef, insalata – salad, pane – bread. Do install translation apps on your smart phone for easy translation on the go.

So there you go. Happy planning!

After exploring a little bit of Corniglia, we went to Vernazza, the neighbouring village. Train fare is 1.80 Euro from Corniglia Station, and the ride took less than 10 minutes.

Just in front of the station, there’s the main street, Via Roma, that is lined with little cafes, restaurants, shops, grocery stores as well as colourful houses and steps that lead to more cliff houses. Vernazza is packed with tourists, unlike the quiet Corniglia, but nonetheless, the village is beautiful.

Via Roma, Vernazza.

Shops, cafes and houses at the main street.

Via Roma runs to the  main square through Via G. Guidoni. The main square, known as Piazza Marconi, is where the small natural harbour is located.  Having a small harbour with an amphitheatre shape makes it the most quaintest of the five villages. Local fishermen dock their colourful boats here and unload their catch of the day that they will immediately sell to the restaurants around the village.

After spending time at Piazza Marconi, we walked up the trekking steps that lead to Monterosso Al Mare. We made it just to the top to view Vernazza from up the cliff.

Then we went down and climbed the opposite steps that lead to Corniglia. At first we wanted to walk all the way to Corniglia which is 1 and a half hour away but we skipped the idea because my shoes were not meant for hiking. And we actually have to pay 7.50 Euro to continue walking. We thought we just get down and take the train and pay 1.80 Euro instead. Cheaper and safer. ;P

The view was breathtaking. We glad that we climbed the cliff.

We had a nice lunch at a restaurant by the cliff which is called Bar Ristorante La Torre. The waiter, Andrea,  was friendly and recommended us nice lunch and learned some Malay Language from us. He wished us Selamat makang. Yup, Vernazza can be like Terengganu. Few minutes later his cook came and wished us Sala makan.

We had a great time at Vernazza. Climbing up to the top to have the beautiful view and food was the best thing that we did here. If we ever visited Cinque Terre again, we will make sure to wear hiking boots and hike to all five villages.