The Five Lands

Here we are at the first weekend trip of the year, after a long holiday through Central America, and without counting my quick visit to Madrid some days before as that was not for travelling but to be with my family and friends. And what a beautiful place to start the year, Cinque Terre, So now that it is getting extremely hard to find new appealing flight routes and destinations to go, it appears the weekend trips for 2016 will have to be planned differently; this is, flying somewhere we’ve already been, but to go to the nearby secondary cities and places where you cannot take a direct flight. And of course, there are hundreds of beautiful places still to discover across Europe, with many others always great to return; but from now on, this will have to be plan for most of our future weekend trips.

Starting this trend, a good priced flight to Pisa was then. Not for staying there and re-visit the city I’ve already been twice, but for spending the entire Saturday to visit Cinque Terre at merely 1 hour by train to the first of the villages, Riomaggiore, and the other 4 just a short train ride in between them. Visiting this beautiful region has been on the agenda for quite a while now but always forgotten on behalf of going somewhere else.

The 5 villages form part of the wider Cinque Terre National Park which is in turn, listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO under the name: Portovenere, Cinque Terre, and the Islands (Palmaria, Tino and Tinetto). It is definitely worth to come, see and enjoy the incredible nice landscapes, the rugged coastline and the multicolour ancient and historical villages against the deep blue of the Mediterranean Sea. (more…)