Cinque Terre translates to 5 Lands in English. The five towns (lands) of Cinque Terre are Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso al
Mare. The entire Cinque Terre region is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Manarola, Italy
We absolutely loved our time in Cinque Terre. Gorgeous weather & gorgeous views! We visited the area before the Disney/Pixar movie Luca came out and absolutely LOVED watching the movie and reminiscing about all the areas in the movie that are inspired by the Cinque Terre!
Manarola, Italy
We took a couple days off sightseeing to just rest and relax after going strong for 8 weeks in Europe so far. Our apartment in La Spezia was the perfect location to do that. It had a grocery store in the same building and was just the perfect place for our home base. At that grocery store, we found zebra burgers for sale! Our host was amazing and communicated fast. We thought La Spezia was such a great base, we dream about living here one day! It is the big city right before Cinque Terre and is on the water and gorgeous! I also like the proximity to France so we can see family easily..just maybe it will be home one day!
One evening we went to the local wine festival. Everyone was in the streets and visiting the local food and wine vendors. It was such an amazing environment, singing and dancing! Do you know what the best part was? Not having to worry AT ALL that a fight may break out where my kids could be innocent bystanders of a stray bullet. I love Europe! At home, we would probably avoid a night event where the whole city was drinking for this reason. After attending the festival, we were walking home and stumbled upon a children's bookstore that was having an outdoor event. They had dollhouses and games to play, and Peppa Pig was there! Briella really enjoyed having a moment of kid fun. She hasn't been able to play with her dollhouses in months!
We purchased the Cinque Terre Family Train ticket that allowed us to have unlimited stops to all the villages. It also gives you wifi in the villages as well, with a unique username and password on each ticket. This pass also gives you access to the parks if you are not staying in one of the villages and use of the bus.
Manarola was just beautiful. It is probably the village you would recognize from the famous landscape. We got off the train and walked straight to the path that would have the best view of the best view looking back at the town. The sea was just so gorgeous, colors that are hard to describe, and so clear! This is really one of the most scenic places we had been to! It was super hot with no shade at the end of June, and there was a line to get into the famous restaurant, Nessun Dorma so we kept on moving and went back to the train to find a spot to eat at our next stop, Monterosso al Mare.
Monterosso al Mare is the only village of the five that has a true beach. We got a spot on the beach and enjoyed playing in the sand and water for the afternoon. Before heading back to La Spezia, we found a restaurant overlooking the sea to eat dinner at, Nuovo Eden Bar & Gelateria. We had so much food and a few drinks and it was very affordable! Aubrey even got a 2nd meal it was so good! Sunset sea views are always gorgeous!
Up next on the trip we drove along the coast all the way up to Cannes, France. What a gorgeous drive! Just a couple weeks after driving up the coast, a large bridge that we had drove across had collapsed killing 43 people! So sad! We are so thankful we went over it without incident. It was a major link of the European route 80 in Genoa, linking Italy to France.
All five medieval towns along the Ligurian Coast provide
scenic views of rugged terrain with terraced stone walls, 4300 acres where the
mountains come straight to the sea. The coast along the
Cinque Terre is characterized by high cliffs, caves, bays, & tiny beaches.
The area is famous for its many lemon trees that can be seen
throughout Cinque Terre. It is also renowned for its white wines, grapes, and olives/olive oil. Interesting tidbit* This area of the coast was often attacked by pirates centuries ago.
The land was already in a state of degradation in 2011,
terrace abandonment is thought to be a contributing factor to the flash flood
disaster of October 25, 2011. After 4 hours of uncharacteristic 22 inches of
rain and subsequent flash floods, the towns of Monterosso al Mare and Vernazza
were virtually destroyed. The flood left the town buried in over 13 feet of mud and debris (submerging even the train station in mud), causing over 100 million euro worth of damage. I have seen youtube clips of this day and it was horrible. I am so happy they were able to come back from that! Knowing how overrun these villages are with tourists, it feels good to spend money here at the restaurants and small shops, knowing it will go back to the residents. Buy all the gelato! Haha.
Originally, the villages were only accessible by sea or by
mule paths that connected the villages of the Cinque Terre and to Via Roma, the
main road that connected all of Italy to Rome. These mule paths have been
maintained and used over the centuries and now provide hikers with a more
intimate view of the sea-swept Cinque Terre.
Monterosso Giant:
The Giant is 46 feet tall and weighs 170 tons. It is permanently placed in front of the Fegine Beach, at the foot of Villa Pàstine, an Art Nouveau home.
The impressive 45 feet high sculpture
stood on the promontory as part of the decoration of the luxurious Villa
Pastine (built in the early 1900s). In addition to the trident, Neptune bore a
gigantic shell on his head, which acted as the terrace of the villa.
During World War II, Monterosso was bombed by allied forces,
and the Neptune statue (along with the villa) suffered serious damage. It was
damaged even further by heavy seas in 1966.
The beach at Monterosso runs along most of the coastline and is well used by tourists and locals. The beach is the only extensive sand beach in the Cinque Terre. Monterosso is a small town overrun by tourists in the summer months.
The "Top of Europe" is at 11,332 feet above sea level and is a high-altitude building and overlooks the eternal snows of the Aletsch Glacier. It is connected to the underground Jungfraujoch railway station by a tunnel, and to the Sphinx Observatory by an elevator. It is the highest point in Europe that can be reached without hiking. You get there by the highest train station in Europe. On a clear day, you can see all the way to The Vosges, a mountain range in France.
You have to stand upon it to get an idea of how huge the ice mass is. It's not for nothing that this icy wonder is the heart of the Jungfrau-Aletsch protected area, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There are almost 14 miles of ice and it is almost 3000 feet thick at its lowest point. In total, there are around twelve billion tons of ice here!
The Sphinx Observatory is an astronomical observatory located above the Jungfraujoch in Switzerland.
The Top of Europe includes several restaurants and a permanent exhibition about the Jungfrau Railway and the Alps. It also includes Europe's highest-altitude post office and a research station.
Looking out over The Aletsch Glacier
Icy air streams across your face, snow crunches under your feet, and the view nearly takes your breath away: on one side the view of the Mittelland up to the Vosges, on the other the Aletsch glacier-the largest alpine glacier in the world and is a Unesco World Heritage Site, bordered by 13,000-foot peaks. Standing on the Jungfraujoch 11,332 ft above sea level, you can feel it with your first step: this is a different world. It's one you have to experience. All four of us were impressed in the Ice Palace, even at 26 degrees (F.) We also found a Lindt Swiss Chocolate Heaven, the highest chocolate shop in Europe. We found the Snow Park Fun and we thought about going tubing but decided we were not dressed appropriately. The activities were Snow tubing, sledging with the Balancer, Flying Fox rope slide or ski, and snowboarding.
On top of a huge rock formation on the Jungfraujoch is the Sphinx Observation Deck. There is an ultrafast elevator that takes you to the observatory and an international research station. It climbs 354 feet in 25 seconds. We experienced a once-in-a-lifetime experience on the largest glacier in the Alps, the Great Aletsch Glacier. With a length of around 13 miles, it is the heart of the Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is cold and windy out here. The highest winds recorded here are 165 miles an hour! The average temperature is 19 degrees Fahrenheit. I went live on Youtube while here.
The Sphinx Observatory is an astronomical observatory located above the Jungfraujoch in Switzerland. It offers views of the Jungfrau, Mönch, and Eiger peaks, all within a few kilometers. The scientific part of the Sphinx observatory includes two large laboratories, a weather observation station, a workshop, two terraces for scientific experiments, and an astronomical as well as a meteorological cupola. The astronomical cupola is equipped with a 76cm telescope with Cassegrain and Coudé focus. The observatory plays an important role in a range of long-term experiments; it serves as a solar spectrometer for the Institute of Astrophysics and Geophysics at the University of Liège, Belgium, and plays a key role in a LIDAR experiment conducted by the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland. The observatory can be seen in the movies The Grand Budapest Hotel and Krrish 3. It was visited by Season 22 of the reality competition series The Amazing Race on their visit to Switzerland in Leg 8. It also appears in the 2016 videogame Steep.
The Sphinx Observatory
LINDT SWISS CHOCOLATE HEAVEN:
This amazing experience is on "The Top of Europe!"
Rodolphe Lindt could have torn his hair out. The Lindt founder tried everything to make the chocolate taste even better. It was all in vain. Frustrated, he left his factory on a Friday evening – and forgot to turn off his self-made stirring machine. When he returned on Monday, he was flabbergasted. The crumbly cocoa-sugar mixture had become a delicately melting crème. Lindt tried it and it seemed like heaven. Visitors to the Lindt Swiss Chocolate Heaven experience this key moment. They turn Lindt's mixing machine, learn from a virtual Lindt Maître Chocolatier how a chocolate bar is made, and discover delicacies in the shop. Heavenly, indeed!
The day we went to The Top of Europe was the day of the funeral of a dear friend of Brian's since he was 3 years old. Alexa passed away after a brave fight with cancer. We brought a pinwheel and a heart sparkler up to the "Top" with us to have a little memorial for her. We had the memorial as close to Heaven as possible in Europe. We found the perfect spot on the Glacier Plateau. It was a heartbreaking decision for Brian not to fly home for the funeral.
Brian & the girls holding a pinwheel in honor of Alexa
It took a ton of effort to get this heart sparkler lit with the strong winds, but we got it lit and let it burn all the way out
It was fun to explore the Ice Palace! There was a great photo opportunity around every corner.
Ice Palace
A fun play on the movie Ice Age
We decided this must be the Grandpa from the story "Heidi"
Tuesday, we took another day trip, this time an hour drive to Hallstatt, a town I found on social media. I found it by searching the hashtag #Beautifuldestinations on Instagram and immediately added it to the itinerary. Hallstatt is a UNESCO World Heritage town constructed on an itty bitty piece of land/shoreline at the bottom of a mountain. Not just a mountain, but the oldest salt mine in the world. They can prove that salt has been mined here since, get this, 5000-450 BC. My mind can't even comprehend that there has been a settlement of humans here that long AND that there are artifacts to prove it still around! Apparently, the salt in the mines preserves things well. 7,000 years of salt mining and being habitable to humans! Until the 19th century, you could only get to Hallstatt by boat. Now tourists are bussed in by the 100s. Hallstatt is really popular with Asian tourists because China has created a fake Hallstatt village that is a pretty accurate replica. Even though it is only a (really) small village of 750 residents, over a million visitors came in 2018. So if you do go to Hallstatt, consider extending your trip there and staying overnight or several nights. Visit their restaurants and shops. Their economy has taken a hit because it is so hard for locals to do their daily activities in town now since it's so crowded, they have to go to nearby towns to do so. And a large majority of the tourists stop in to take a billion selfies and then leave, adding no value to the economy.
Today we would be meeting Martin to add our story to the Memory of Mankind archives deep inside the salt mine mountain! Exciting! If you missed our story on the historic MOM project we get to be a part of, read it here. We arrived early so we could explore the town first. I chose to try out a location I had read about that is a little further than the "downtown" but has a great view of the complete town. I'm going to call it the island because you have to walk over a bridge to get to the main area, an open green park, perfect for picnics. There was a playground for the girls to play on while Brian and I took millions of photos. We sat in ultimate peace in the brisk air and sunshine, watching the long wooden ancient boats called Fuhrs, move across the lake, with this beautiful prehistoric town in the background. Our children played and we were living our best life.
The island was known for swimming and there were stairs leading you to the lake. The water that was gathering around the shoreline of the island looked...different than the rest of the lake. I was told it was due to rain. We were hoping to get in the lake and swim as it was Memorial Day and back home we always play at the lake that weekend, but we had to finish filming our Memory of Mankind piece first. Maybe afterward.
We met Martin at the ticket counter and together we took the cable car up the mountain. At the top of the mountain, there was a historic cafe with outdoor seating, Rudolf's Tower. We ordered coffee and croissants and sat down to talk for a while before our tour time. The view was insane. I completely understand why this is a UNESCO Heritage view. When it was time for the tour, we were given a special mining outfit to put on, everyone who enters needs to wear it. It wasn't the most flattering or fashionable thing to film an exciting project in, but I made the best of it and covered up my outfit. Plus the kids look so cute in theirs. The tour was a must. The history learned is priceless. I won't go over the actual tour because we filmed the whole thing and will share that later, but the slide down the inside of the mountain back to the middle entrance was AWESOME. Ok, I was afraid. But there was no other way out. none. you either go down the slide or stay in the cave. The slide was a single wooden beam that you sat on and kept your feet to the side of the beam, and you flew down faster than you had time to regret it. I am so overprotective of Briella and scared she would hit her head, even though she was going to sit on my lap. Luckily everyone was safe and enjoyed the ride. *Edited to add, apparently there was another way out, actually stairs down right next to the slide, who knew?!
We met up with Martin once again at the end of the tour and he took us to the Memory of Mankind archives. Briella had the honor of adding our ceramic tablets to the archives. I can't wait to show you the video! We included pictures on our tablets that I thought would represent our specific life, to show future generations what family life was like in the middle of the states during our time. Briella liked playing in the dirt and found a large rock of salt. We all licked it to be sure haha. I just wanted to see if it had a different taste-it did not. Martin presented us with our own copies of the tablets and gave us very special instructions.
A quick recap of what Memory of Mankind is:
The Memory of Mankind Foundation (MOM) was founded with the
goal of preserving an image of our presence beyond the digital age. For this
purpose, ceramic-based data tablets are stored deep in the salt mine of
Hallstatt (Austria) in the Memory of Mankind Archive. Will we be able to access
the huge data volumes of our digital age in 100, 1,000, or 10,000 years, if
highly sensitive hard drives last only about 10 years and we already have
problems today reading floppy disks or CD-ROMs? – Does our digital society not
threaten “Digital Alzheimer” or a “Digital Dark Age”? – Which storage medium is
resilient enough to last for 1,000,000 years or more?
Martin Kunze developed a ceramic color printing process and
a ceramic microfilm tablet that can store up to 1000 book pages on a single
ceramic tablet sized 8×8 inch. These modern day “clay tablets” made of
high-performance ceramics are hard as sapphire, water or temperatures up to
1,500 C° and even acid cannot harm these data carriers. The optimal storage
place for MOM, the largest time capsule of humanity, was found in the oldest
salt mine in the world, in Hallstatt-Austria, where salt has been mined for
more than 7,000 years. The salt mine itself is protected by international
agreements as part of the UNESCO World Heritage region Hallstatt-Dachstein /
Salzkammergut.
How can the MOM archive ever be rediscovered in some far
distant future? – A treasure map in the form of a round ceramic token (diameter
approx. 2.4 in) shows the exact position of the MOM archive by means of
landmarks. The MOM tokens are given to every participant. In the distant
future, the scattered tokens around the world will show a future Indiana Jones
the path to the MOM archive knowledge treasure.
We were given a coin detailed with the map to the archives. It is how the future will find all of this information we leave behind. We and our children are now a part of keeping this history alive. Every 50 years, those who hold the coin will come together to make decisions in the best interest of the MOM project. How exciting to think of the possibilities of who will find the treasure trove of information and what they will do with it.
Rudolf's Tower
Sky Walk
At the end of finishing our MOM project, we took a wooden seat "train" type ride out of the cave. We were back at where the cafe was, still atop the mountain. We thanked Martin and made plans to have drinks with him on his patio later that night. I still had to go see and photograph Rudolf's Tower. It now just looks like a mansion high in the valley, but it was first a medieval defense tower in 1284. There was a skywalk built off the mountain, that extends outright over the village of Hallstatt. 350 meters over the alpine rooftops with nothing below, it was a freestanding walkway. You can perfectly see the tall bell tower of the Lutheran Church and all the buildings. I am glad the floor isn't made of see-through material like the one in the Grand Canyon but I still had shaky legs. I walked very slow and it took me a while to warm up to looking over the edge at the natural beauty of Austria. Once I took in the beauty, I couldn't help looking and didn't want to leave. I took unreal pictures with felt like the whole world in the background. We wandered around looking at the natural spring that flowed down the mountain, just enjoying the peaceful sounds.
At some point, we realized that there were no other noises but nature and us. We looked around and quickly figured out that everyone had left. Apparently the last cable car down the mountain leaves at 6pm. We were completely alone, not even a single employee. There was a ton of panic between Aubrey and I. Dude, were we going to be spending the night on top of a freaking mountain?! It looked like it was going to rain soon, where would we take shelter? My phone had low battery, I only had 1 bottle of water left and it wasn't even full. We had a couple granola bars and that was it. I have to pee. So many things are going through my mind. What kind of wildlife is up here? Then the voice of reason sang out that this was a popular mountain, which means there are probably paths down the mountain. That was Brian. Brian is the voice of reason. We take off walking/jogging down the mountain on a narrow path that winds back and forth all the way down the front of the mountain. I was sure there was no way to get down to the town before dark and before it rained, or before we were eaten by a bear...at one point I felt relieved because there was what seemed to be a small prayer area and it had a small roof overhang. We found shelter! So if all else failed, we could come back here if it rains. After a nature potty break, we continued skipping down the mountain with my anxiety in full gear.
We start to hear running water and as we get closer, Brian is sure it is a waterfall. He says we should go see it, there seems to be a path over towards it. Here is where Brian and I differ on the story. (There is video evidence but we both refuse to look at it because neither wants to be wrong.) I think there was a crappy old broke down fence with a warning sign that said DIE. (Okay, so in German the word DIE means THE hahahahaha.) Brian remembers it as a well paved path that goes to a well visited waterfall. Either way, I am like, nope, not going, that shit looks scary. I am not taking my kids over there. All I can think about anyways is what is my Dad going to say when he finds out we were this irresponsible to be left on a mountain with our daughters, one who has cerebral palsy! I had to get down! No sightseeing.
So the girls and I continued down while Brian, who had the video camera and was filming the entire disaster, went to discover a waterfall. We were a couple zig zags down when we heard the most horrible noise, it shook through my body. We heard something large fall down the waterfall hitting other things on the way down, followed by smaller falling objects. Aubrey starts yelling for her Dad, I try to be calm knowing my anxiety is at 100 right now and that it couldn't be what my brain thought it was. Brian did not fall down the waterfall. Aubrey repeatedly screams for Brian and was left unanswered, so I start yelling. I yelled louder and louder until I was screaming at the top of my lungs. At some point, it hit me, physically, that it was him that fell and then the camera equipment after him. Aubrey thought the same thing. I collapsed to the ground holding on to Briella sobbing while wondering how I am going to go home without my husband. Aubrey is hysterically running towards the waterfall screaming Daddy in such a horrific scream, I will never be able to forget. We were sure he was gone. Aubrey has now said she was running to see if he was still holding on and try to save him, where I didn't want to see it because I heard it fall all the way down. Lackadaisically, Brian comes strolling up the path from the waterfall to the path we are on and we are just crying uncontrollably. He has no idea what is wrong and never heard us yelling. I yelled at him to never do such a stupid thing again and telling him not to ever die again. He didn't understand why if we were so thankful he was alive, why I was mad at him. At this point, I was beyond done. Done with this mountain, done with this city, done with anxiety and my emotions were numb. Brian tells us that the noises we heard were boulders falling from above that fell where he was standing and on down the waterfall. What in the hell. Now I am mad again. We start to get low enough that there are houses and I start to calm a bit. Where are these people and why isn't anyone coming to save us? By the time we get completely down the mountain and walk to our car, I am literally numb. Screw eating in this town, I just need to get out of here.
On the drive back to Gmunden, we found a roadside alpine restaurant and pulled over to splurge on dinner. Brian died and came back tonight, we are going to eat like Kings. Brian had a local beer, Zipfer. After dinner, we all decided on dessert. YOLO (You only live once.) I had peach crepes, Aubrey had the kids clown ice cream dessert and Briella had a bee ice cream.
That night, after we got the kids to bed, we went to the deck to have a drink and talk with Martin. How in the world were we going to explain what we had gone through just since we left him earlier this evening!?! One of the memorable highlights of the trip Brian and I agree on was simply conversing with Martin. If you haven't gathered, he is a pretty interesting guy, intelligent, wants to learn everything he can about different cultures, places. We found out during tonight's talk that Martin did a TED Talk! Well, that makes sense! He is perfect for a Ted Talk! We learned so much from his point of view, from his questions. How lucky we are to be in this moment enjoying his company, in the mountains of Austria. If you are coming to Austria in the Hallstatt region, you would be doing yourself displeasure if you do not have a stay at Martin's home, just for the company alone! The friendships you develop with people from across the world while traveling are profound.. Because intriguing midnight conversations have a way of forging bonds that withstand geographies and calendars.
The impressive 45 feet high sculpture
stood on the promontory as part of the decoration of the luxurious Villa
Pastine (built in the early 1900s). In addition to the trident, Neptune bore a
gigantic shell on his head, which acted as the terrace of the villa.
