Arriving at the gateway to the Cinque Terre

Saturday 25 April 2026 |

Planning our trek

The next four days of our trip was dedicated to finally walking the Cinque Terre. This has been in the offing for nearly a year, and finally happening.

The name ‘Cinque Terre’ means the ‘five lands’ and refers to the five coastal towns on a Western coast of Italy; Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Maranola and Riomaggiore.

But first a quick indication of where we are. We have moved on from Genoa and are based in Levanto for the next three nights.

Cinque Terre is on the North-Western coast of Italy

Like everything we have discovered on this trip, walking the Cinque Terre costs money. We bought two day passes. It normally costs E10 per day, but because Saturday was a public holiday, the Sunday ticket is also considered high season – so the total bill came to E25. It also gave us access to the tolilets on the route – more about that later.

A beautiful town

From the moment we arrived, Levanto looked wonderful. Not crowded, just peaceful and small. It was easy to walk around, relatively flat (how much were we to enjoy this later) and tidy.

Our first view of Levanto from the Train Station

We checked into our very spacious 2 bedroom apartment. We had a full kitchen dining lounge area, long hallway, generous bedrooms and an outdoor area. The decor was a little strange, a bit like they decided to put Grandma in a home and rent out her house. A weird, and slightly funny smelling mix, of strange bedding, cups and bisciut tins.

They could have done with more sturdy hooks for the painting above my bedhead, as I was invited to take a closer (really close) look at one of them at 2am.

Le Due Lune

Carlos, our host, recommended a few places to eat, but none came with more praise than Le Due Lune trattoria and pizzeria. The website menu looked inviting, reviews waxed lyrical about the quality and reasonable price, but given those traits, they advised that seats were hard to get and bookings were highly recommended.

Even the lady selling us the Trek tickets reiterated that bookings were essential. She thought that tonight was impossible and even getting in before we left in a few days was doubtful.

We gave it a try and lucky enough, if we sat down right now, they could accommodate two people. It was stunning. Mel had seafood salad, I the grilled seabass and muscles, and we ordered a 1 litre caraffe of very good house wine. This was followed by a shared pizza that we intended to use for lunch the next day, oh and dessert. What a feast.