Sept 14 Cinque Terre, Italy

 After yesterday's all day adventure to Rome, today is an all day adventure to Cinque Terre, a collection of five towns spilling down the hillside into the ocean along the Italian Coast. All very photogenic and loaded with tourists.

The port is Livorno, and there were tours to Florence, Pisa, Lucca, and Cinque Terre. Probably the biggest collection of ship's excursions you'll see.

Medieval fortress guarding the port

In La Spezia we boarded a ferry to take us to the Cinque Terre cities. They just jam the people onto the ferry, although everyone had a seat. This is Fezzano -- not one of the five, but very similar

We pass through a sheltered bay between the mainland and a small island. Lots of boats anchored there.

Porto Venere, also not one of the five, located at the exit of the narrow bay. Note the fortress atop the hill.

Romaggiore, the first of the five towns.

Look at the line of people waiting to board a ferry. Since we were full, they could only replace the people who got off. But there's a ferry every fifteen minutes or so -- you can see we're waiting for the previous ferry to back out before we can dock.

After another stop at Manarola, we got off the ferry in Vernazza. This is probably the most photogenic of the five.

After a brief stop of less than an hour we pushed/shoved our way back onto a ferry and continued on to Monterosso al Mare. Here we had a longer stop and found some lunch. Very crowded with tourists and full of narrow streets with restaurants and shops.

The local church

After a two hour stay we hiked to the train station, which took us past the beach.

The train trip was uneventful, but representative of the area. Our planned train was running an hour+ late -- but so was the preceding train. So when it arrived we pushed and shoved our way aboard and left only a little late than planned. They did hack a lot of tunnels the mountains in order to get the train along the coast.

I found the ferry/train system inexplicable. The only place where a fare was paid (I assume since the tour guide handled it) was when we boarded the ferry in La Spezia. At subsequent ferry stops there was no checking of fares. No checking on the train platform or the train itself. I guess you pay for one transit on the train/ferry system from La Spezia to La Spezia and you get off/on wherever you like. But there were a lot of people hiking between towns using the path along the rail tracks. Why didn't they just take the train?

After a one mile hike from the train station to the waiting bus at La Spezia, we drove back to Livorno. Along the way we passed a major marble quarry. Lots of businesses along the road supply commercial quantities of marble, and here's the mountain where it's all coming from.

It was another long day.