Day two of beautiful Monterosso, slow start as we have booked a tour for 1 o’clock so easy breakfast then slow walk thru the town to the other end of Monterosso to find where would take our tour from. Monterosso and Vernazza were the two main cities that were affect by the mudslides in 2011 but you can’t see much evidence of it today. We had morning tea in a small cafe in the port before boarding our tour boat. Not knowing what to expect we we’re pleasantly surprised to find it was a semi private tour and we were two of only eight people on the boat. Sue opted for a land self guided tour today as she doesn’t really like boat travel.

Well I’ll it was an amazing experience, we got to visit each town along the way not to get off the boat but to take photos of from the boat. 1. Monterosso 2. Vernazza 3. Corniglia (had 200 steps from the port to the town ) 4. Manarola 5. Riomaggiore. We were then dropped off at Portovenere for 45 mins where got to visit the Grotto Byron and take some photos back along the coast. And then on to La Spezia where we took the train back to Monterosso.

Along the way we were taken into some caves and inlets, we could have had a swim if we wanted to. We also saw a small village that was only accessible by the sea and had 1000 steps up from the water to the houses. The tour guide said she had only ever been there once and never again.

Along the way you can still see the damage caused by the mudslides in 2008, you used to be able to trek between the 5 towns on a walk way call the love trail but a couple of bridges were wiped out by the mudslides and were never rebuilt as shown in the picture below, so most people just travel via the trains.

Off to Aix Provence tomorrow, Ciao Italy it has been amazing and Bonjour France tomorrow.