My three-night, four-day stay in Cinque Terre allowed me to hike between Monterosso and Vernazza (one of the longer and more difficult of the hikes) which took me a good two to three hours with several stops along the way. I remember this hike very well as I started off wearing a quick-dry shirt and my shorts over my bathing suite but ended the hike wearing my bathing suite and a not-so-dry shirt. For some reason or another I remember sweating profusely at the beginning of this hike. I was literally sweating like a faucet that would not stop. I did not know how to stop this faucet if my life depended on it. I didn’t even remember perspiring like this in Greece or Turkey, which were both hotter than Cinque Terre. I’m assuming it has to do with the exercise that I was undertaking at the same time the sun was constantly bathing on me. Regardless, I had never perspired like this in my life and for that I will always remember this particular hike.
As soon as I got to Vernazza, I went straight to the beach where I made my way to the rocky shore and jumped off the dock into the cool, refreshing Mediterranean Sea. Rather than going to the sandy shores, the little kids and adults alike would opt to go on the docks and dive, jump, or run and jump off into the sea. I have to admit, it was more fun this way. While swimming and enjoying the scenery of the Italian shore, a teenager caught everyone’s attention by performing high-flying diving acts by jumping off the steep, rocky shores. While his acrobatic manoeuvres were far from perfection, his twists, cannonballs and butterfly dives were enough to keep everyone watching with anticipation as he got out of the water and climbed his way up the rocks repeatedly for another performance. Later, he was joined with more divers who had found this cliff-diving interesting enough to do themselves. I watched as I dried myself off and was surprisingly called over by someone yelling “Hey Toronto!” I turned back to find two Californians that I had met the night before on my way to Cinque Terre, waving at me. The night prior when we arrived in Cinque Terre, we both searched for rooms to stay: they wanted a single room while I was looking for a bed in a dormitory-style place. They found what they were looking for in Riomaggiore while I was left with more work to do for the evening.
After phoning a few places in different towns to no avail, I was quickly left with no choice but to go and search the towns by foot. The sun was quickly setting in the horizon forming a beautiful picture that could only be described by actually being there. But I couldn’t let this distract me as I was running out of time to find a bed. Coming to a new city in the evening with no place to stay was nothing new to me but still made me a little anxious at times, even at this point where I was more than half way through my trip. I decided to go to Monterosso, which I was told was the most popular place to stay with more hotels and beds than any of the other towns in Cinque Terre.
Upon arrival I quickly made my way to the tourist centre at the train station hoping they could help me find a place to stay in Monterosso. The woman at the desk was as much help to me as a staircase is to someone in a wheelchair. When I asked for help in finding a bed to stay in for a single traveller, her response to me was “go check the internet.” Maybe she didn’t know she was working at a tourist centre or that her job was to help tourists with their problems, but she quickly dismissed any of my concerns by saying every place in town will likely cost me about 60 euros since accommodations were typically rated on a double occupancy. She at least made an effort to tell me how to get to the Internet Café, but the directions were quickly forgotten as she didn’t write it down or show me on a map. I left the tourist centre a little disappointed at Monterosso and with no map, which I realized
Did Cinque Terre redeem itself? Find out by downloading the PDFzine!