After spending a few wonderful days in Florence, it was only natural that we would want to spend some more days in the Tuscan region of Italy.
It certainly feels as if the past few days have been much more quieter, in the countryside! I am from Devon, England, so I am a country girl born and bred. Sometimes I just need to get out of the city, to drown out the noise and the busy crowds. It smells, sounds and feels so different when you are walking in the countryside. It feels familiar to me. It feels like home.
We are nearing the end of our Europe backpacking trip. We are three months in and it feels like we have been away from home forever! This life feels like the norm for us now! Im so glad to have taken this trip, I feel refreshed, inspired and I want to further educate myself in as many ways as possible...online classes, further education and learning languages. As much as I love traveling, I admit that it has been nice to spend some time in a place so similar to home!
From Florence, we headed to Siena. Which is a fair sized medieval city. Its large, but it still has that 'small town’ feel to it. The town square is where most of the action is, whilst we were there they had live music. But the square is more famously known for its annual horse race. Which has been around for 500 years! There is a beautiful cathedral located near the town Square. It has a ticket office which offers many good deals on entrance tickets into the cathedral, the dome etc. We didnt go into any of these, but thought I would mention it incase you would like to enter a few of them! The best view of the city's skyline, is from the old fortress walls.
Everything that you should see in Siena is within walking distance of the city centre. We stayed in a hostel called Siena hostel. Our room wasn't great, it reminded me of a prison cell and I'm not fussy about accommodation! But the rest of the hostel was great and it had a great location! They even had a dog, which I fell in love with! Sometimes, I just need a cuddle with a dog, you know? He stank really bad and he was so old. But that just made me love him even more!
As well as spending a day in Siena city centre, we spent a day in San Gimignano. Which is a smaller, again medieval town, encased within a high wall and it is surrounded by miles of beautiful Tuscan countryside. From every angle, their is a stunning view just waiting to be viewed! The towers in the town, were built by the rich medieval folk who once lived their. The higher the tower, the more money that family had. Kind of like a 'my tower is bigger than yours’. There originally 49 towers, which I can imagine looked awesome! Now only a few remain. The land surrounding the town was used for farming food to feed the townspeople, in medieval times. Now, it is mostly for wine and olives. The fields look like green mosaic, creating that classically beautiful Tuscan scenery.
The pace of life is definitely slower than in the city. We went on a Saturday, I can imagine that it is much quieter on the weekdays. There were still tour groups, but not enough to take up all the room, as they do in the cities.
Cinque Terre.
Originally, we had both the Amalfi coast and cinque Terre on our lists of places to travel too. But, we decided to just go to cinque Terre, as we were already in the south of Italy. Also, we had read that the Amalfi coast is extortionate! Not something that we can really overlook on a budget backpacking trip, especially when we are so near the end and the budget is getting tighter by the minute, as we try to fit everything in!
We couldn't afford to stay directly in Cinque Terre! So we opted to stay In La Spezia, which is just a short, cheap train ride from Cinque Terre. It takes 30 minutes to get from the furthest town from La Spezia. We mostly always do this when we travel. It's so cost effective. As long as the price of the train or bus to travel into the centre, doesn't outweigh the cost of saving on accommodation, then that is what we do! This time it has paid off, as we have a really cool apartment, one minute from the train station!
Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore are the five towns which make up Cinque Terre. In each of the them, colourful houses cling to the coastline. Each town is very similar, but also has its own unique touches. The towns are connected by trains, buses, ferries and kind of by hiking trails.
Montrose Al Mare.....
This is where to head to if you want to swim and chill at the beach! Beautiful soft sand and clear blue water with a bar on the beach! Perfect! What I liked about this one, you can walk through the rocks to the old town, where there is another beach and a harbour.
Vernazza.....
Vernazza has a very small town, which has a harbour. It was the quietest out of all the towns that we visited and the best views were taken up high.
Corniglia.....
This had more a of a 'lived in' feel. Everyone seemed to know each other! We wondered through the narrow streets to the panoramic view of the coastline.
Manarola......
You probably recognise this town! It is used in many photos! It is the perfect postcard photo!
Riomaggiore......
This was the most colourful town out of all five. We watched the sunset, on the rocks at the small harbour, which ended such a magical day!
Unfortunately ALL of the hiking trails were closed the day that we weren't. We had to take the train everywhere and we were disappointed! Even just taking one hiking trail would have satisfied us, but it was not meant to be that day! Luckily the all day unlimited Cinque Terre train pass was only €16 each, otherwise we would of been really sad. In the towns, we took some higher paths to still get some of the coastal views. But I can imagine that they would of been unreal on the hiking trails!
Originally, we were going to just go to a few towns, but as the paths were closed, we went to all five.
You can easily check which paths are open/closed by asking at the tourist information centres, situated at all the train stations in Cinque Terre! It's a shame that you can't predict in advance if they will be open or not. But it's a magical place, which is worth visiting even if they are closed!
It's time to say goodbye to Italy and it's on to Athens, Greece! The history geek in me is just bursting at the thought of it! I can't wait to draft my next few posts and share my experience of my first time in Greece!
Peace out.
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