The Midnight Adventure to the Cinque Terre

Sleeping in the Zurich train station.

We packed our bags and headed for the bus station on the Swiss and German border where we purchased a ticket for an overnight FlixBus to Genova Italy by way of Zurich. We had a short one hour trip to Zurich where we then had a 40-minute layover which ended up becoming a 3-hour layover in Zurich due to a delayed bus. We then decided to hunker down for the next few hours in Zurich’s main train station until our next bus departed.

An hour later, our bus yet again got delayed, so we walked around town trying to find a place to get inside out of the cold. The only thing open, a casino. However, we didn’t want to pay the 10 francs per bag to check them so we resorted back to the train station. We tried to get some sleep and shortly later found out that our bus was yet again delayed. And then shortly later, yet again. This whole time we were freezing cold, tired and our bus now delayed 5.5 hours and our departing time is 05:55, just an hour before our original arrival time in Genoa. Due to the delay, Flixbus left us stranded in the middle of the night for seven hours, with nothing open for us to stay warm in. While Flixbus is a fairly cheap option for travel I definitely don't recommend using it if there is anyway to avoid it which you will hear about again in a later post.

Birthday dinner view in Corniglia Italy.

After arriving in Corniglia and checking into our hostel we headed to a restaurant with a seaside view of the Mediterranean Sea to celebrate Mackenzie’s 21st Birthday with local wine, and fresh food cooked to perfection. The restaurant was a cute little patio overlooking the hillside vineyards and the Mediterranean sea, the perfect place to begin our Italian adventure and much better than Zurich Train Station.

Sunset in Corniglia Italy.

We then walked around Corniglia and explored the town, while making sure to stop and get gelato. It was delicious, refreshing and tasted like vacation. We headed down to the cliff side where we sat and enjoyed the sunset. It was by far one of the most spectacular sunsets I have seen. We then headed to our hostel to catch up on the sleep we missed the night before due to our delayed bus.

Exploring Riomaggiore with friends.

I woke up at 8 am, got ready to head out for a long day hiking and visiting the five Cinque Terre towns. We grabbed breakfast where I got a ham and cheese focaccia and fresh squeezed orange juice. Afterwords we hiked between Corniglia and Manarola, another one of the 5 Cinque Terre towns just south of Corniglia. We headed to the water and swam in the Ligurian Sea. After relaxing by the water, and grabbing lunch, we headed to the most southern town, Riomaggiore.

Monterosso al Mare beach.

After taking in the scenery we headed to our next stop, Monterosso. The largest and busiest of the five towns. We walked along the water, grabbed some cocktails at a beach bar before heading to Vernazza, the last of our stops and the last of Cinque Terre towns. We saw the town by foot, before finding a lovely restaurant where we ordered fresh Italian pizza. In my opinion, no where near as good as some of the pizza I have had in the United States, but still a delicious meal.

We then took the train back to our hostel to pack up our bags, make a plan for the next day where we where to travel to Rome.

To view my photos of the Cinqe Terre, Click Here.