Cinque Terre is even more stunning than I ever imagined it would be!

We weren’t sure how it would be visiting Cinque Terre in November but decided to go anyway and I’m so glad we did! We were blessed with absolutely perfect weather and even better, it was low season so there was hardly anyone else around! We practically had all the walking trails to ourselves!

In case you didn’t know, Cinque Terre is actually 5 fishing villages within a national park. All of these villages are gorgeous and built up jagged cliff faces and everything is painted in different colours.

As we weren’t too sure how the weather would be we only stayed here two nights and stayed in the first town, Riomaggiore which was gorgeous! We had so much fun wandering through this picturesque town at sunset, exploring the cobbled stone streets that wind up the hills and watching the sun go down across the harbour.

The beautiful town of Riomaggiore at sunset.

We were very keen to do as much of the iconic hike between the 5 villages as we could but unfortunately the first two from Riomaggiore were closed while we were there, which was a bit of a bummer and I guess the down side of travelling in low season. The first from Riomaggiore is meant to be the easiest along the coast line to Manarola, it was closed for maintenance and the second one from Manarola to Corniglia is closed due to a land slide…which you can still see has blocked the path! Thankfully there is a train though so we were able to still visit these villages! In the end, we decided to get the train all the way to the other end of the 5 villages, to Monterosso and worked our way back to the village we stayed at, Riomaggiore.

Monterosso is the only village with a proper beach however I didn’t think this town was as pretty as many of the others so we didn’t explore too much here, especially as we were keen to start the hike!

The beach of Monterosso

Hiking from Monterosso was stunning. You begin the walk along the coast, with the beautiful blue water on one side and the steep cliff face on the other, before turning to head up into the hills. It is such a stunning walk through the national park and then through lots of olive trees.

Beginning the hike.

Quickly got stunning views along the coast line.

We ended up in the beautiful town of Vernazza before we even realised it! Vernazza was the perfect spot for lunch and it was fun to people watch here in the harbour. This town was a lot busier than any of the others and was so colourful! It was a fun town to explore.

Arriving at Vernazza!

Such a pretty, colourful town.

The walk from Vernazza to Corniglia was lovely. It went through all these vineyards that are on the edge of the cliffs and had stunning views over the coast. The vineyards are all changing colour at the moment, so they looked spectacular!

Corniglia was another gorgeous town and is the only one of the five that isn’t directly on the water but rather is perched on top of the hill. We found incredible gelato here, which was a welcome treat and loved the view across the coast to the other towns.

We caught the train to Manarola and this town was so cute. We wandered around this town before finding the perfect spot for sunset photos…it really does look like the iconic postcard photo, especially as the sun goes down…the colours just light up!

It was absolutely beautiful and Scott had the best time taking photos here…well throughout the whole day really.

Cinque Terre really is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen and we absolutely loved our quick trip there.

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