two backpacks and a diaper bag

Thursday, May 10th. Cinque Terre. We took the past three days to visit Porto Venere and the five villages of Cinque Terre. All three days we had the car seat and the stroller frame (no bassinet) along with the diaper bag and baby carrier. Sean and I both loved Vernazza, and liked Monterosso the least. Even though Porto Venere is not part of Cinque Terre, we think it is a hidden gem. I’m actually glad that not a lot of tourists visit Porto Venere. It was a relaxing place with a stunning sea view and cozy vibe.

On Tuesday, we took a train from La Spezia to Monterosso. The tickets to Cinque Terre cost 4 Euro per person, no matter if you stopped at Riomaggiore or Monterosso. We decided to take the train to the farthest village.

The train to Monterosso passed through the other 4 villages and it went along the coast, so when it wasn’t inside the many tunnels, the view of the open sea was just amazing. The train stopped at Riomaggiore first (about 5 minutes from La Spezia), then 2 minutes later at Manarola, then another 5 minutes to Corniglia, 5 minutes to Vernazza, and 5 minutes to Monterosso. With waiting time for people getting on and off the train, the journey took approximately 30 minutes.

When we finally got off in Monterosso, the platform was quite small so people hurriedly walked towards the stairs to the village. The only way to get to town was to take the stairs down. There were no elevators or escalators. Arthur was sitting in the car seat when we took the stairs down. Sean carried the car seat with Arthur in it, and I carried the stroller frame.

At the bottom of the stairs, we were greeted with sunshine and the ocean. It was a long strip of pedestrian-only boardwalk. Well, it wasn’t really pedestrian-only. Taxis and approved vehicles can also use the boardwalk to access the downtown part of the village.

We turned right as we exited the train station. We didn’t really have a plan. We just followed the stroller-friendly road.

It turned out to be a very good path. We followed it all the way until the end, then we took the incline on the right. It was a high incline. The incline, though, took us to a smaller path. To the right, there were steps up to a hiking path. Lots of people were coming from the top. To the left, a small path that was stroller-friendly. No one was on that path. We decided to follow it. It turned and curved until we got to the end of the path with an awesome view of the town.

Note the dark clouds behind us. Turned out it never rained the whole day, so we were good.

From here, we took our time walking back to town. We stopped en route to feed Arthur and attempted to put him to sleep. It didn’t work. He was not sleepy yet.

So we continued walking.

We started looking on TripAdvisor for a place to have lunch, but then we stumbled upon a small place with what looked like really good focaccia bread spreads. We decided to get them and sat at a nearby shaded bench to eat them. And that was our lunch. The cheese, tomato, and pesto focaccia was sooooo good.

After the food, we continued walking on the boardwalk, heading to the other side of town.

We got some gelato along the way. And we tried to put Arthur to sleep again but he still refused. Probably because we couldn’t find a good place to put him to sleep. It was bright and somewhat loud around there.

We strapped Arthur inside the carrier and started walking again. The path took us to a tunnel towards the harbor and the town square.

We then walked through the many small streets.

We put Arthur to sleep in one of the small streets. It was difficult to put him to sleep, but we made it! He had been awake for a long time. We were afraid he was overtired.

Once he was asleep, we continued walking around. It was easy with a stroller, actually. We avoided stairs, but most of the streets around were stroller-friendly.

When we were done and wanted to go home, we debated whether or not to take the boat back. We finally decided to take the train back instead.

Before we went back home, we stopped by the grocery store again to get things to cook and we went by a bakery to get some dessert.

At night, we got up almost every two to three hours again to care for Arthur.

Yesterday morning (Wednesday) we had a slow start but we managed to catch the 12:15 boat to Porto Venere. It took about 30 minutes to get to the harbor from our Airbnb and the walk took us through a nice part of La Spezia, actually.

There was a long stretch of street that was a pedestrian-only street lined with shops and restaurants. It made for an enjoyable walk.

When we got to the harbor, we bought a one-way ticket with stops to Vernazza. We had planned to stop at Porto Venere, spend some time there and then get on the 14:50 boat to Vernazza. And then we would take the train back to La Spezia.

The boat ride to Porto Venere took almost 30 minutes. It was Arthur’s first boat ride!

Getting on the boat was quite easy. I had Arthur in the car seat and Sean carried the frame on board. Getting off the boat was the same thing. Arthur was in the car seat.

Once we got off, we started walking along the coast first. There was plenty of room to walk.

At the tip, we climbed up the stairs and saw the church on the rock.

We decided to walk away from it first, though, and grab lunch at the place Sean found on TripAdvisor. We put Arthur to sleep first and headed straight to the restaurant.

The restaurant was a small place. There was no room inside for the stroller so they had us sit outside. I took the picture below of our table. I should have taken it at a different angle, but I was literally standing on the opposite side of the “street” when I took this picture.

Just after we ordered the food, a car came by. I had to move the stroller about 15 feet down the street to give the car space to go through. It was a small emergency car and yet it managed to go down the street. Amazing.

The food was very nice! Seafood goodness for me.

Sean didn’t have seafood. He had a caprese and a pancake-like meal. He said they were good.

The restaurant was Portivene Un Mare di Sapori. It was #1 on TripAdvisor. Because we were sitting outside, we could see other tourists looking at TripAdvisor on their phones as well.

The place was always full and there was always a queue outside for people to wait for available tables.

Good food. And Arthur slept throughout.

After lunch, we walked down the street towards the center of town. We got some gelato yet again. Then we turned back around towards the church. Arthur woke up sometime during the walk. We decided to put him in the carrier. This worked out well as there were stairs going up to the church so Sean had to fold the stroller and carry it to the top.

The view was great!

After walking around the church area, we walked back to the harbor to catch our 14:50 boat. We got there just in time.

I took the next few pictures and videos from the boat.

This is Porto Venere.

Here’s the church.

And this is Riomaggiore.

And Manarola and its train station.

And here’s Corniglia, the only village with no harbor.

And then we got off at Vernazza. Looking back on all these pictures, I realized they didn’t really capture the picturesque beauty of these villages.

Getting off the boat in Vernazza was also quite easy. I had Arthur in the carrier.

Once we were off the boat, we were able to open the stroller and pushed it all around Vernazza. The town was quite stroller-friendly.

After putting Arthur to sleep, we decided, once again, to follow a stroller-friendly path. It led us to a steep walkway that ended with a great view of the village.

Then the path turned into a hiking path that is not stroller-friendly. So we decided to hear back down.

When we got to the train station, I noticed an elevator to the platform! Yay. That worked out well. We didn’t have to fold the stroller and take the stairs. Given that Arthur was still asleep, this was a very good thing.

So we bought a ticket back to La Spezia and got on the train.

We cooked again for dinner and we finally got to watch Black Panther on iTunes.

Last night, Arthur got better sleep than the nights before. He had a 4-hour stretch… twice! When we woke up in the morning, we felt more energized than the previous days.

So this morning, we decided to start at Corniglia then Manarola and Riomaggiore.

The train journey to Corniglia was uneventful. Once we were there, we took the stairs up to exit the station and walked in the pedestrian path. At the end of the path, 383 steps up to Corniglia awaited. Yes, we counted.

Counting the steps helped make me focus on getting to the next 10. It helped make me forget about the climb. I wore Arthur while Sean carried the stroller. We took pictures every 100 steps.

100th step done!

200th step!

300th step. Sean was not as enthusiastic anymore.

And we made it to the top!

After catching our breath for a moment, we continued on to the center of the town.

Perched on top of the rocks, Corniglia is built with many stairs. It wasn’t as stroller-friendly as the other villages. We thought that the only challenge was to make it up to the village. We didn’t realize we had to navigate through the cramped alleyways and long-stairs passageways.

These past few days, we’ve been giving Arthur a nap before we left home. So that he doesn’t get overtired, we would give him a nap two hours after he last woke up.

After going up several set of stairs to get to a better viewpoint, we decided to head back down to give him a nap. We found that this place wasn’t as picturesque as the Vernazza. Perhaps we didn’t go to the right place, and with the stroller, it wouldn’t be as easy.

We put Arthur to sleep when we got to a quieter and more shady place. I first rocked him in my arms until he was half-asleep, and then we moved him to the car seat where Sean rocked him until he was asleep. Then we placed the car seat back in the stroller frame and pushed it towards the open space.

At this point, we thought we might as well grab something to eat. As we did not want to have to carry the stroller up and down, the easiest place to have lunch was at the restaurant in the square. We didn’t even bother looking up the TripAdvisor review.

We asked for a table for 2 and a stroller. There was still a lot of space in the outdoor seating area. We were probably the 3rd diner there.

We sat down and I ordered spaghetti with mussels and Sean ordered the spaghetti aglio olio. The server was short and to the point. No smiles. And when they brought the bread and Sean asked for the olive oil and balsamic vinegar, the server raised his hand and said, “Wait.” He did bring the bottles two minutes later. Maybe that was just how they do it in this part of town. We were just interested in the food anyhow. Service wasn’t our main priority.

Within the next five minutes, the place became really full. All the tables on the outdoor area were occupied. We thought that the place must be good. Out of curiosity, Sean went online to look at the ratings. He said, “There are 21 restaurants listed on TripAdvisor. Which number do you think this restaurant is ranked?”

I responded, “14. I think it’s just packed because of the location. Generally, places this big won’t have high ranking.”

Then Sean scrolled down on his phone and left his mouth open with surprise.

“19,” he said. “Look at the curve of the reviews. It was skewed not to the place you’d want.” I looked and sure enough, most reviewers said the place was “Terrible.” But there were some reviewers that said the food was good. So we were hopeful.

The food finally came. It was actually quite good. Not amazing but pretty good. I wished they had given us a plate for the mussel shells but at least there was a plate for the bread earlier. Sean’s aglio olio was also good. It turned out this place wasn’t too bad. The service needed to greatly improve, but at least the spaghetti was good.

Arthur woke up just before we finished the meal. He hadn’t slept for too long.

After we paid for the bill, we decided to leave Corniglia and head to Manarola. Instead of taking the 383 steps back down, we decided to take the car path. Oh, I totally forgot to mention that when we got to the top after climbing the 383 steps, we found out that we could have taken the bus from the station to the village. We decided to walk down to the the station instead of taking the bus back. The walk looked pleasant, and hopefully, we would get a good view.

It turned out that the walk was pleasant and the view was actually pretty good. Not spectacular like Vernazza but good enough for a family with a stroller.

So we took the train to Manarola.

Once you exited the train, there was only one way to get out of the station. Of course this caused a long queue at the platform because tons of people were getting out, and others were also coming in at the same time to catch their train. I was surprised they didn’t create another exit point.

To get to the town, you’d have to walk through a tunnel. At the end of tunnel, we turned left, sat on a bench, and fed and changed Arthur. Then we continued our way to the sea.

The open sea looked so good. It was quite picturesque there. It got better, though. There was a walkway to the right that went along the rocks away from the village. From there, you could get a good view of the village and the sea.

We continued walking to the other side. It was much quieter there. The view wasn’t as great, but it was pretty nonetheless.

This way led down to the rocks where people were chilling and swimming. We did not touch the water at all at any point during our Cinque Terre visit. Maybe we should have. We didn’t even do it in Monterosso where it was obviously a beach place.

Since it was quiet on that side, we decided to put Arthur to sleep. It worked.

Then we walked back towards town. We continued to follow another trail up to the left side. This led us to a church and a memorial cemetery. The view from up here was the best!

Below is a picture that Sean took.

And then he did his photo magic to bring the colors to life.

In general, what we see would be so difficult to capture on the camera. I think he did a great job on this one.

We sat up here for quite a while. The view was… really really really good.

Afterwards, we headed back down and we went to the other side of town. The view wasn’t as pretty. Instead of the buildings, you get the view of the terraced vegetation instead.

So we went back down to the train station to make our way to Riomaggiore.

We got to the station at a very good time. There were not many people there. We were able to carry the whole stroller down to the tunnel and up to the platform without folding it. This worked well especially since Arthur was still asleep.

As it started to rain (even though the sun was shining brightly), we stood at the end of the sheltered part of the platform. In the next 15 minutes, more people got onto the platform. And when the train finally arrived, we had to walk about 50 meters to get to it. With the rain and the ridiculous number of people, we had to quickly navigate our way through the madness to get to a carriage that was not as packed.

If this is how things are in May, I wonder what June or July would be like.

Good thing we only had one stop. It was a 2-minute journey.

The train stopped on platform 2 in Riomaggiore which meant that we had direct access to the station and the square. No stairs required. Since it was still raining, we made our way towards a shelter. Then we changed Arthur’s diaper.

When the rain finally subsided, we headed to the main part of town. We had to walk through a tunnel to get there. It had a pretty blue color with murals on the side. Arthur didn’t seem to like it. He started whimpering and he let out a small cry. I’m guessing he didn’t really like the dark. He did this again on our way back to the train station.

As we emerged from the tunnel, we walked up the slope to a bench for me to sit and feed Arthur. When he was done, we continued our walk.

We stopped by a street-food place and got a mix calamari and a slice of pizza. Good stuff.

At the top of the hill, we tried to look for a good vantage point. There was nothing really good, unfortunately. After having been in Porto Venere and the other four Cinque Terre villages, this was a bit of a let down.

So we went back down to the main thoroughfare, got ourselves some gelato, and made our way back to the train station.

While waiting for the train, we used the toilet by the station. It cost us 1 Euro each, but the toilet was super clean. There was a guy who continuously maintain each stall. He wouldn’t let you go in until he made sure it was clean for you. This was nice, but that meant there was always a long line to the toilet.

We also witnessed an argument at the platform. We weren’t sure what they were talking about but we knew there was something wrong. They kept mentioning police and documents or something like that. One of the men was an trenitalia person.

When the train finally arrived, we got on it and made our way home.

It had been an interesting couple of days. I’m glad we were able to visit Porto Venere and all five villages of Cinque Terre. Even though we didn’t get to hike any of the trails, we still had lots of opportunities for some really good views.

I enjoyed Vernazza, and even though Manarola had an incredible view, it still felt so claustrophobic with all the tourists around. Sean also enjoyed Vernazza, but he also liked Porto Venere.

Tomorrow, we leave Italy and head to France.