Week 8 p1: Even tunes need a walk
Kanye West wasn’t the soundtrack I expected when hiking on Cinque Terre, but as I passed the girl with her blaring mobile phone, my eye met her dad’s eye a few steps behind her.
“Yes mate,” the dad commented in a strong Kiwi accent, “Even tunes need a walk.”
Week 8 was a slow week and our route only took us from Cinque Terry on the northern coast of Italy as far as Nice in France, just a few hours away. After that I got ill and we decided to bunk down in Nice for a few days to get the bug out of my system. Week 8 then took a very unforeseen turn as we got caught up in the Riviera Floods (see our post Wet, but OK!).
Italy
It’s almost impossible to choose a highlight for the week as everything was overshadowed by the flooding, but the day spent hiking between the towns of Monterosso, Vernazza and Manarola will be remembered for a long time. Some of the coastal hiking routes are still closed after the 2012 floods that took 9 lives and in some places one can still see the scars left by mudslides. The hiking trails are obviously in high demand. The park is one of the most visited places in Italy and even though there was a continuous snake of people along the trail for most of the way, the views and the scenery was breathtaking. We stopped for freshly squeezed orange juice bought from an elderly gentleman outside his hillside cottage and took an afternoon nap in the shade of a stone wall in the old harbour of Manarola.
Up to now we could just arrive in a place and fairly easily find a spot to camp, but as it’s getting later into the season we’re now increasingly encountering campsites that’s already closed for the year. The weather has also started to turn somewhat colder and wetter again and we need to plan more carefully for every next destination.
France
Nice turned out to be another favourite on the trip. The laid-back atmosphere and beautiful colour pallet was a joy as we wandered down Promenade des Anglais and got lost in the old town’s meandering streets.
There’s no trip stats this week, but we’ll include it again in Week 9’s highlights.
