View of Manarola from the trail
This was a free day in Monterosso. We took the first boat (9:45 am—this is a lazy town) to another one of the five towns, Manarola. There we took a trail up into the vineyards above town, a steep hike up and then a long, level walk on a narrow trail. Looking up we saw grapes growing on impossibly steep terraces. Tiny grapes were just starting to form and there were red poppies sharing the rows. Looking down we saw the jumble of buildings and the sea. It was a very pleasant walk and surprisingly uncrowded. We ended with a steep walk down back into town. We had a lovely seafood lunch on a balcony overlooking the town and the sea, then took the train to another town, Corniglia. The walk from the train station to the town itself was very long and steep, so we opted for the shuttle bus. The bus could not handle all the people so there was much shoving and yelling in various languages. It’s interesting to see what happens when people from various cultures with different ideas of queuing (or not) collide (literally). This was our first lesson in the Italian horizontal queue, which involves heavy use of the elbows.