Torino stopover then Cinque Terra

We caught the train from Giverny to Paris with our new Kiwi friends. We had three hours to kill in Paris before catching the train to Torino. So we stored our luggage in lockers at Gare Lyon station and wandered over to the botanic gardens, which happened to include a Paris zoo. Claire photographed most of the animals (maybe one or two escaped). See some of Claire’s animal photos below.

We then noticed that the weather was about to change and we were going to get rained on. There’s something strange about this trip every time we are in transit it rains on us. We left the zoo but were 5 minutes too late and got rained on.

The train to Torino was another high speed train that went through Lyon, Chambery and Modane. Extremely fast at stages and then slowing down at others. Between Chambery and Modane we went though some spectacular mountain terrain. Don’t think Claire missed any mountains.

Arrived late at night in Torino (very, very confusing signs of how to exit the station to catch a cab) eventually we sorted it out and found a taxi and had a good meal at the restaurant across the road from the hotel.

In the morning we had a couple of hours to explore the city. I’m truly sorry that I didn’t slot in an extra day here. With what time we had available we planned to wander through the heart of city through many piazza’s with impressive statues of men on horses toward an impressive tower that had the best view of all Torino. We were told that this opened a 9 am. It was open at 9 but the elevator to the sightseeing platform was not operating until 10. Sorry about that chief. We had a train at 10.50 and still needed to check out of the hotel. So we took a different way back and took in more sights.

The tower we didn’t go up.

We had a good trip to Cinque Terra passing through Genoa. Originally we thought that we could spend time typing up posts on the train, however there was too much great scenery.

Coniglia station is at sea level but the village is perched high up on a hill. Luckily the Cinque Terra card we purchased at the station entitled us to a free bus trip saving us from the 382 steps up to the town.

We were in the village about 10 minutes and found our host Maria-Angelina who escorted us (up and down several sets of stairs with all of our heavy luggage) to our apartment. The view from the window was great.

Maria recommended a restaurant and told us if we wanted to eat there that we would need to make a reservation. We then met the restaurant owner who is the Italian Seinfeld version of the soup nazi. We were told to go away as there were no more bookings available for two people. The owner begrudgingly booked us for a table of two for the next night. More to follow later.

We had a meal with a couple of Aussies in another restaurant. Geoff and Kay live in Switzerland and Geoff works with the UN in the climate field. We partied and stayed out late.

Early the next morning we hiked from Corniglia to Manarola and then onto Rio Maggiore. These were relatively easy hikes along the Cinque Terra coastal paths but after a while were packed with so many bloody tourist, especially tour groups. We however were residential visitors.

Looking back at Corniglia from the path to Manarola

Manarola

A ferry trip from Rio Maggiore to Monterosso gave us a great view of all the  five villages and the coastline. So many pictures . Monterosso is more of a town than a village and Claire managed some shopping.

Monterosso