Genova, La Spezia, Cinque Terre

The departure day is finally here! My little sister joined me for the beginning of the travel. We get a carpooling with Francisco who works in Milan. In the car we fall asleep, we do not even see the border crossing between France and Italy! Francisco is awesome! Despite the chaotic traffic of Genova, he dropped us at the Train station. We feel very lucky because it's a real mess to drive in the city. Immediately, we leave our bags and set off to discover Genova!

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The historic center is quite nice, but we prefer the parallel streets to the main avenues, streets that are barely 2 meters wide and remain shaded all day. After a few minutes, we are starving, we find a nice little place to eat a bite.

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The specialty of Genova is the Pesto! So we order the typical dish ''Torfie al pesto''

This is a kind of pasta-gnocchi served with potato and green bean, is a bit sticky but not bad!

We keep on to the port of Genoa and discover the biosphere that was installed next to the aquarium, it is much like the Biodome of Montreal, but tiny! There is also a huge pirate ship, and just by observing the wooden carvings you can already imagine stories that happened on the oceans.

Le train est à 17h ! On file à la Gare - direction la Spezia ! The train is at 5pm! We go back to the train station - towards La Spezia!

Coming off the docks, Filippo pick us up by car and leads us to his beautiful house in the hills of La Spezia.

We spend a great evening together with our host who wants us to discover the specialties of the area and cook for us - guess what! ... '' Trofie al pesto ', but also Melon e Prosciutto di Parma (personally I never eat ham as good), and of course the famous tomato-basil-moza, but it is the moza di bufala, whose taste is a bit stronger and deliciously good. And to accompany it all, a good white wine from the region.

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The next day (Tuesday, June 30), we headed to the Cinque Terre by train. After we missed the stop we left the train in Corniglia that is the central town of Cinque Terre. From there we started a hike advised by Filippo.

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On atteint Volastra qui est un village au hauteur pour entâmer la descente vers Manarola ( le village préféré de Filippo). 600 meters climbing in less than an hour and with the heat of the dog days, I can tell you we got hot. But once up, the view is breathtaking, we even forgot the little ordeal we had to get there. The hike goes through the vineyards on the slopes of mountains falling into the Mediterranean Sea. Sometimes rails cross the path, these rails are used to transport the grapes in carts. (Formerly everything was done by hand ..).

Once we reached Volastra, a village in height, we initiated the descent to Manarola (Filippo's favorite village).

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The sequence of stone steps made our legs squealing, and this until we had the strange feeling of being a puppet dislocate. Manarola is actually superb! But full of tourists who throw themselves on the horns of fried calamari. Under the guidance of our host, we pass by the way to see the view from the small port, but also a popular spot for local to swim in the late afternoon. We escape the crowd and on the run, we catch the train back to Monterosso (the first village) and take a break relaxing on the beach that is not private.

The afternoon passed quickly and we head to visit the village of Riomaggiore before meeting Filippo in Manarola.

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On the way home, your host advice us to salute the castle right behind the park, it seems that the inhabitants do it to avoid to get in trouble .. The evening turns again into a nice meal with Italian specialties as anchovies prepared by Filippo with Foccacia (a kind of bread with olive oil)

The next day we go for a hike in the South of the Cinque Terre Park. The bus takes us to Campiglia. From this village, we take the trail that goes down to Porto Venere situated at the tip. Along the way, we get to see magnificent views of the coast.

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Once in Portovenere, we pick a restaurant. A good hearty meal and many laughs make us spend the afternoon. We jump on the shuttle that crosses the channel to go for a swim on the island of Palmaria (in front of Porto Venere). Back in La Spezia, enjoying mussels from the region and jazz concert in the center.

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The next morning, it is with a heavy heart that we leave Filippo. We spent a wonderful three days with him. Let's go to Milano!