Arrival in the Cinque Terre - Monterosso al Mare

We left Pisa just after 11.30 a.m. and caught the train to the Cinque Terre. We were staying in Monterosso al Mare, which is the largest of the towns in the Cinque Terre. It's also the only town with a proper beach, all the rest have rocks that you can swim off.

The train took about an hour and a half from Pisa. We bought first class tickets because they were only 3 euros more, see how pleased we look below...

Looking at the weather reports before going, it showed rain all day every day. But luckily it was lovely and sunny when we arrived, and about 28 degrees.

Our B&B was about a 10 minute walk from the station, which after getting lost turned into about 20 minutes! You can pretty much walk from one end of Monterosso to the other is about 25 minutes. It may be the biggest town in the Cinque Terre, but it's still tiny.

We were greeted with sparkling wine and antipasto when we arrived at the B&B, they had a gorgeous terrace where breakfast is served, so we sat out there and enjoyed our first taste of Italian wine!

After checking in, we went straight to the beach. There are several beaches in Monterosso, the two main ones are split by a tunnel on each side of the town. There were free beaches and ones that you paid for. Of course the paid beaches were nicer, but they were 18 euros for the day, and since we were only there for a couple of hours we chose the free beaches. But the paid beaches are probably worth it if you were going to be there the full day, you get sun-loungers, sunscreen, water and use of paddle boats.

After we'd spent a couple of hours at the beach, we went for a walk to find some lunch. It was at this point that a huge storm came out of nowhere and sent us running for the hotel room! We were walking through the tunnel between the beaches, when all this sand blew down and was whipping our legs, it really hurt! There were mini sand tornadoes, and it was bucketing down with rain. I have never seen such a quick change in the weather in my life. It must be because it's right on the coast.

So we spent the rest of the afternoon inside, and with no wifi so we had to have actual conversations with each other! hahaha

The storm cleared at about 6.30 p.m. and we were able to leave the room to explore more of the town and grab some dinner. We walked up the cliffs on the side of Monterosso, the opposite end to the start of the trails between the towns. Being up so high we had an amazing view of Monterosso, but we could also see to two of the other towns Vernazza and Manarola. The scenery in the Cinque Terre is just stunning, possible the prettiest place I have ever seen. Each town is so unique and cute, and the views you get are amazing.

We had dinner at a yummy pizza place just down from our B&B, we ended up getting a pizza each, but they were so big we easily could have shared one. The food we ate in Italy is literally the best food I have ever eaten, way better than we ate in France. The ingredients they use are so fresh, and I have now become addicted to mozzarella and prosciutto.

We went to bed very nervous about the weather the next day. We were going to be visiting the rest of the towns in the Cinque Terre and couldn't imagine doing it if there was more torrential rain like there was that day!