We flew into Milan Bergamo and had a lot of traveling to do to get to Cinque Terre, but it was exciting! We landed and found a bus to take us to the Bergamo train station. We bought the wrong tickets, got on the wrong bus, and jumped off just in time! I coerced the lady at the ticket booth to refund my money by repeating the same thing over again each time she said no. I think she realized I wasn't going away. That was the one and only transportation mishap. We then found the right ticket and the right bus! At the train station we bought tickets on a regional train to Milano (a one hour ride) and then connecting tickets on to Cinque Terre!
Oh wait, there was one other transportation glitch- our three hour train ride from Milano to La Spezia (the town below Cinque Terre) had been over sold. We were not assigned seats, but we naively had no idea what this meant! We boarded the train and it was totally the Hogwarts express- a long corridor with compartments of six seats all down the length of it. For those of us without seats, this means we had to stay in the corridor for the whole ride and sit in these tiny jump seats that pull out of the wall. You need to stand up any time someone wants to walk by. Note to those thinking of taking a train in Italy- if it's an intercity train, make sure you have seats!! An adventure is just that- you never know what will happen!
We arrived in La Spezia and had to board yet another train to Riomaggiore, our first village of the Cinque Terre. We would stay our first night in Riomaggiore and then start the hike across the villages in the morning. We were too late to catch the 8 pm shuttle to our hotel, which was up in the hills, and the next shuttle wasn't until 10:30 pm. So dinner time! We found a restaurant that was actually listen in the Fodor's guide book and decided to try it. I asked the waitress about 'senza glutine' and she said, 'well, we have gluten free pasta! You can order anything at all and we will use gluten free pasta instead!' The amazing thing that we absolutely LOVE about Italian coastal food is that it is simple, fresh, and delicious. No extra additives or breading. Super good. Below is the view from our table across the town:
I ordered baked local fish, and that's exactly what I got! A baked local fish! It was stuffed with fresh herbs and incredible olive oil. I love eating whole fishies, as I learned in Japan!
We ordered a bottle of local wine and toasted Nonnie! We made it to Italy for her, she was remembered every step of the way.
Our room that night was actually a small apartment, not incredibly clean, but not horrible. It served its purpose. There was a huge thunder storm during the night. All was well, though, and the morning dawned sunny and gorgeous. We took the shuttle back to town and we were off 'a pied' to cross the villages of Cinque Terre! The first park of the walk was PACKED with people! From Riomaggiore to Levanto is paved and easy strolling. Here's the view from the trail:
We kept trying to find places where you couldn't see anyone else along the way. We stopped in Levanto at a small local market and bought grapes and pepperoncini pecorino romano to go with my GF crackers. It was a perfect picnic lunch! This is a self-portrait looking back across the coast:
The next village was Corniglia. Until this village, the walking was not bad. There are at least a hundred steps, probably more, in switchback stair cases running up the hill to get to the town center. This was the beginning of where the walk got challenging! It was super hot and we were drinking lots of water. In Corniglia, I decided to try my Italian Celiac Card and get some gelatto. We went into the shop and the nice man there was worried, he offered fruit because he knew that would be safe. He then decided to call his wife and ask her what she thought! She apparently told him my options. I ended up with plain frozen yogurt that he then drizzled with fresh squeezed lemon juice and honey. I would never have thought of that combination, but it was AMAZING!! The sad thing was that I never had gelatto. No one thought I could eat gelatto, but we never figured out why!From Corniglia on, the path got hard. We were very glad to have our hiking boots on. It was steep, rocky, narrow, and definitely a hiking trail! Along the way, we passed groves of olive trees and vineyards:
We reached Vernazzo at about 3pm, and this was where we spent our second night. To get into Vernazza, you climb down many, many steps through winding streets and into the main street of the town. We had booked a room at a camere called Rooms Elisabetta. We went down into town and found Elisabetta and she brought us to her sister who actually was going to put us up in one of her rooms, a family operation, apparently!Elisabetta told us they had a wonderful room for us with an ocean view, right at the top. At this point, we're thinking, great! The top of the building! So... no. Not the top of the building. The son of the sister of Elisabetta was summoned to take us to our room. We followed him back up ALL of the stairs all the way up to the top of the hill overlooking the village. There, at the top of the hill, nestled right into the rocky cliff, was a BUNKER. A lovely little bunker surrounded by tiled patios, but still a bunker:
Note the cliff on the right. It was crazy! It was a tiny room with a double bed and a wardrobe, with a tiny connecting bathroom. Behind it was a long patio overlooking the town, and the above picture of our bunker room was taken from the patio in the picture below:
Below where I'm standing is the skinny path that leads down the many, many steps to Vernazza. The funny thing was that Mike and I had paused on the way into town the first time for a picture (below). We had no idea that we were standing right under the patio of the room we had rented. Behind us you can see the town, way below at the bottom of all the stairs.
It was another step of the adventure, that's for sure! We loved it, it was amazing. Who would ever think you would end up in a place like this with the best view in (well, above!) town? I was a bit worried about that fact that if you need anything or if anything goes wrong, you have to go down all the stairs. But it all worked out and we really enjoyed it! We walked down to town for an afternoon sit, and this was the view from our table of the bay:
That night, we went to a restaurant on the main street running through town. I again started to talk about glutine and the waiter said, 'Do you have celiac disease? I know all about it! No problem!' He talked us through the menu and offered rice in place of pasta. They don't have rice on the menu, but they keep it on hand for people like me! We had a fantastic meal. We started with local anchovies marinated in lemon juice. Yum! We are new anchovy lovers. Perhaps it's because they are caught fresh right there in Cinque Terre, but they are delicious. Our second course was local clams and mussels cooked in arborio rice with white wine and butter. Oh my goodness. I'd eat that every day! The last course was grilled swordfish for me and fried calamari and anchovies for Mike. We walked back to our room up all those stairs very full and happy!
In the morning, we decided to try a harder hike. There is one main trail that connects all the villages, but there are also higher trails that run up above the villages to smaller towns and rural churches. We still needed to reach the last village of Cinque Terre, Monterosso al Mere. We decided to get there by these upper trails. We left Vernazza with local cheese, salami, and plums from a village shop. We hiked up a switchback lane to a hill church. All along the route were tiny shrines in the brick walls and terraced vineyards strung along the hillsides. It was a magical place! The picture above is the view of Vernazza from about halfway up the hill.At the church, we ran into some hikers who had come from where we were going. They pointed out the direction of our next trail and wished us luck as it was very overgrown. They weren't kidding! The next trail was about an hour of bush whacking across a path that was about six inches wide! Sometimes it was choked by prickers and sometimes it was hugging the hill next to high drop-offs. The whole way was amazingly beautiful. At the top, we reached a monastery that was the perfect picnic spot:
The road down to Monterosso from here was a steep cobbled path. We were happy to arrive in town, and in need of a swim! This is the one town with a proper beach. Once we found the beach, we were grateful that we had avoided tourists by taking the upper path:
We were excited to swim in the Mediterranean! Mike found some ice cream after our swim:
We took the train from Monterosso back to La Spezia. We stayed in a great camere with the nicest room of our trip. This one was actually connected to a building! We had a fantastic dinner at a small restaurant that we discovered while wandering around. The chef was super helpful and knowledgeable. Eating in Italy is so marvelous!In the morning, we shopped for our picnic lunch, same as every other day (I LOVED our picnic lunches!). Mike found a natural food store that had GF bread, biscotti, salami, and lots more! I was in heaven! We shopped for fun GF products to bring home!
We took all the same transportation in reverse, this time we were sure to book seats for our long train ride! When we finally arrived in Ayr, we got a pint at the Kirk to celebrate our successful adventure!
(The front rock is Gibraltar, the mountains behind are Morocco!)
7. Saint Michael's Cave is a giant natural cave full of stalactites and stalagmites and folklore has it that it's bottomless. People believed that the apes arrived on Gibraltar by travelling through these underground caves from Africa. They have now built a concert hall amongst the natural rock formations. Talk about good acoustics! 
All in all, a great trip. No sunburns, no food problems, and a lot of excellent exploring. Go Jimas!