Fabulous weekend away with Rachel and Roberto. Kids were away in Groede so it was just the four of us.
We flew into Pisa airport on Thursday morning then took a train to Riomaggorie. The train system in Italy is fantastic, even their regional trains are modern and luxurious.
We arrived at our accommodation at around 2pm, showered, unpacked and headed into the village to find dinner.
Friday 5th August
On the Friday we had booked to have a boat trip up and down the coast. We had a private skipper so could go where we wanted, stop to swim whenever etc. After leaving the harbour we traveled for about 10 minutes and stopped at a cove only accessible by boat so was empty! We swam up to the beach and posed for a selfie by a small cold waterfall.
We swam back to the boat and continued to travel down the coast towards Porto Venere (which has a church on the coast built in the 1300s on the site of an predating church from the 5th Century!)
We docked for essential supplies, coffee, gelato and mojito before sailing around the island of Porto Venere and heading back up the coast to view the rest of the Five Villages.
As we sailed past Riomaggorie we flew the drone briefly to get a selfie of the boat with the village in the background.
We drove into the harbour at Manarola and watched crazy people jump from the large rock in the bay.
Continuing along we checked out the remaining villages from the boat and then stopped for a swim and snorkel.
We sailed back into Riomaggorie taking all our empty bottles of wine and beer with us.
For dinner we went to an incredible steak restaurant (La Cantina Los) and ordered fillet steaks which were amazing, the AC wasn’t working so we got very warm and needed to drink lots of rose to keep us hydrated.
On our way home we stopped for wonderful cocktails… and had three rounds of them while playing the game “Think of a drink starting with the last letter of the previous persons drink”
Saturday 6th August
We went to the village beach which was very busy and hard to find shade, especially as the sun came around. We continued to trek around and found a spot that had sun for Juli and Roberto and shade for Rachel and me. I ended up climbing under a rock.
We escaped from the heat of the beach and went back through the village picking up gelato on the way. We went back to our rooms to shower and played a game of Ligretto which I lost but won the final round so maybe got the hand of it in the end?
We had a reservation for dinner at 7pm at DA Dulin which was great, we had swordfish carpaccio for starter and a lobster linguini special for main… along with lots of wine. They gave us a gold VIP card and a free bottle of wine.
We went back to the same cocktail bar as the night before but they said they didn’t have any glasswear so we had to use plastic. We stayed for one.
Sunday 7th August
We used the trains to explore some of the other villages, first being Manarola with the big rock that crazy people jump off.
After a warm up jump or two Roberto climbed onto the big rock and went right to the top. He called me after him and we realised there was no alternative now other than to jump in. To a small crowd of tourists we took our live in our hands and jumped. Neither of us had great technique and both had bruised bums afterwards.
We had lunch in Manarola before catching the train again skipping the next village and getting off in Vernazza. We walked through the high street, dipped our toes in the sea, bought a gelato and caught the train back.
We had dinner in a small cafe in the middle of the street back in Riomaggorie. We wanted to check out the other cocktail bar in the village we’d seen so after dinner we went up there and it had a lovely vibe but we managed to be strong and only have one cocktail… and Lemoncello.
Monday 8th August
Finally got out for a run which I’d been trying to do all holiday, looped around the village and ran/walked up the high street.
We packed and had breakfast relatively early and left our bags at the accommodation while we went to the beach for a swim and read in the shade. We walked back up through the high street and used our Gold Card discount for lunch at DA Dulin.
We went back to the accommodation and had a quick shower and change by the small pool and headed back into town.
Train from Riomaggorie into La Spezia and a change for our train to Pisa.