While staying in Levanto (near Cinque Terre), I did a day trip to Lucca, Tuscany. What a cute city! First I rented a bike, and rode it around the ramparts enclosing the old part of town. It was so beautiful biking through rows of trees lining the ramparts, while looking down into the historical streets of Levanto. The breeze from biking was a very welcome addition to a hot day.
After my one-hour bicycle rental was up, I wandered around town enjoying the quirky, curvy streets. I wish I had my wide angle lens with me to take a good shoot of the city center which was a big circle with all of the buildings bending to create the shape. Lucca was a lovely sidestep on my trip.
Now that wedding season is over, I’ll be doing more blog posts from my trips to Italy this past year. Some colour for the winter months! : )
Cinque Terre…. definitely one of my top three favourite places in Italy. This was my third time that I’ve been to Cinque Terre and I’m sure I’ll be back. Cinque Terre is made up of 5 small seaside villages: Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso. The name “Cinque Terre” fittingly translates to “five lands.” Set on the Ligurian coast, Cinque Terre is so special it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. No cars are allowed inside, giving you a feeling of being slightly separated from the outside world, in your own lovely little Italian reality. : ) You can get from town to town via train, passenger ferry, or walking the amazing trails. A couple of the main trails were closed due to maintenance, for one, and a mudslide for the other but I hiked the trails on previous trips and it’s an awesome experience! The first trail between Riomaggiore and Manarola is the shortest, and easiest, even being wheelchair accessible. It’s called “Via Dell’ Amore,” which I doubt I need to translate. : ) It’s lit up at night and is a really nice amble. It’s fun getting a train day pass as well! I spent one day beach/cove hopping and went swimming first in the Riomaggiore marina area, then the cute cove in Manarola (my personal favourite swim spot in Cinque Terre), and finally the small triangular beach in Vernazza. Corniglia is up higher and doesn’t have an easily accessible beach but is quite charming. Monterosso, the last town, is the only town of the five with a large beach but it has a more resort feel and isn’t as unique so I generally skip that town. I stayed just past Monterosso in the town of Levanto which is not technically part of Cinque Terre but is included in the Cinque Terre day passes, being so close to Monterosso. I did a separate post on Levanto. : )
How to get there: The easiest way to get to Cinque Terre is to take a train to La Spezia and from there, there are trains that leave super frequently to the other towns.
Where to stay: You can either stay in any of the towns within Cinque Terre (Manarola and Vernazza would be my first choices but Manarola is cheaper of the two) or you can do like I did on this trip and stay just outside of Cinque Terre in Levanto. It’s so close to the last town of Cinque Terre (Monterosso) that they include it in the Cinque Terre train passes which is great! Levanto is super awesome in itself ( I loved the abundance of bicycles and the nice big bay) but I do admit I love staying in the Cinque Terre towns best as no cars are allowed inside and it’s fun to get immersed in that bubble. Here is my post on Levanto with details of where I stayed.
I also did a post on the beautiful nearby town of Portofino, which you don’t want to miss!
Below are some photos from my 3 favourite towns in Cinque Terre; Riomaggiore, Manarola and Vernazza.
Oh my goodness this was such a fun shoot! Robin and Brad are such an upbeat, fun couple! I was really looking forward to their shoot and Robin picked out an amaaaazing location for their session that I had never been to before. Corn maze, gorgeous rickety water tower, horses, beautiful tree in wide open field…. the list goes on!!
I absolutely can’t wait for their wedding next summer! I already know it’s going to be a blast. : )
I had to include this funny outtake of Brad. So great.
