Day Forty-Seven - Manarola

We bought a three day Cinque Terra card which enables us to make unlimited train trips between Le Spezia Centrale and Levanto and includes the five towns of Cinque Terra. It also allows us use of the walking paths between the towns which has changed since we were here last time when it was free. We caught the train mid morning to Monterosso. It only took us fourteen minutes to get there and we spent a few hours walking around the very pleasant seaside town. It is different from the other Cinque Terra towns as it sits flat by the sea rather than being a hillside town. For lunch we had our first pizza in Italy. It had the wonderful thin, crispy base which we prefer to the thick bases.
After lunch we caught a five minute train to Vernazza. It has a feel to it like Manarola with its single street leading down to the harbour. The town was very busy with tourists mostly having lunch at the outside restaurants. Most of the tourists seem to be Italians, Germans or Americans. We occasionally hear Australians or English. I heard an American make a joke against the Canadians yesterday. She said, “How do you make a Canadian apologise?” “You step on their foot.” All the Americans laughed and I did too!
We intended to catch the train to the next Cinque Terra town of Corniglia but we got on the wrong train as we caught the train at the correct time but it was the previous one running late! It skipped Corniglia and Manarola and delivered us at Riomaggiore the first town on the Cinque Terra trail. By this time we thought we had done enough touring and left Riomaggiore for tomorrow. We walked from Riomaggiore to Manarola a distance of one kilometre. We came across hundreds of padlocks hanging off fences which have been left by lovers. We had seen this practice on “Getaway”.
Today was washing day. Our washing machine is still not fixed so we are washing by hand. It was a good drying day and the sun is finally coming out. The washing line is off our little balcony and I double-pegged everything fearing the washing would be blown all over Manarola.
Late afternoon we set out to buy some groceries at our little grocery shop. We are getting used to the opening and closing times as the shop isn’t opened mid afternoon. We watched a fantastic sunset from the harbour.
Photos: Vernazza Harbour; Sun setting on Manarola; Hanging out the washing Italian style; Sunset off Manarola.