The campsite runs its own shuttle-bus to the train station at Deiva Marina which means no driving for the day. It appears that many of the campsites in the locality do the same thing – I’m guessing because parking is an issue near the station.
We had also pre-bought our train tickets from the campsite which was a total of 16 Euros providing us the chance to visit each of the five villages making up Cinque Terre.

The first of the five villages was Monterosso which can be seen in the distance.

 

 

 

Hopping on the train shortly after lunchtime we headed to the second town Vernazza.

 

This town was badly damaged in 2011

following some major

flooding and there’s still work left to fully restore this pristine village.

 

 

Whilst walking up part of the hill behind the village we could see people walking along a very high coastal path we assumed running between the various villages. We asked a local officer of the Polizia how long the walk was from Vernazza to Corniglia – he answered that it was a 1 hour hike. The joke was on us as the hike took nearly 2 hours and was just gruelling. Having said that, I’d like to add that the views from the path were just amazing with the blue sea below and an array of wild flowers around us. The first hour was mainly steps and steep pathway, the last 50 minutes or so were all downhill.

Here is the view of Vernazza shortly after our departure. It got a lot higher than this and we weren’t exactly prepared for the hike.

 

 

We lacked proper walking boots and had insufficient liquids with us. Fortunately at the half way point a chap has his garden open and allowed us to fill our water bottles.

We spent some time looking around Corniglia and then returned to the Campsite two villages short of the five. Fortunately the receptionist at the campsite had told us the first 2 villages were the best so we had “planned” the day appropriately.