Breathtaking sunset over Cinque Terre

We arrived in La Spezia late in the afternoon and had to arrive in Levanto as early as possible in the evening to find camping, and still we didn’t want to leave this town without taking the winding road up the hills, a couple of hours long, to get a view of all the Cinque Terre land and its villages. We were there, the weather was absolutely amazing and it was something we could not miss!

It took us a while to leave La Spezia behind but soon after starting the curvy climb to the top of Cinque Terre, a spectacular view opened up in front of us. We were sliding through wavy hills covered in vineyards absorbing the warm glowing light of the sun slowly heading off to sleep into the never-ending sea. I’m trying to find the proper words to describe what I’ve seen and how it all felt but they seem to fail me. I remember stopping every now and then by the road just to admire the surroundings, take a deep breath of the clean air and simply listen to the silence.

The villages were cuddling down the hills, between steep slopes and gently touching the water. The hills of the land were beautifully contouring their silhouettes in the distance. Here and there, a few men were working in their orchards.

However, the breathtaking experience ended sooner than we wanted when somewhere between Corniglia and Vernazza we stumbled into a closed road for heavy damage due to a recent storm. We had to rewind all the way back to La Spezia and find a new route to Levanto, which meant a less interesting route and us arriving after dark at the camping… only to find everything fully booked!

Worth it? Hell YEAH!