Milano, Around Northern Italy and Tuscany, and Back to Milano: Ride Day 14: Lucca to Cinque Terre

Getting to Cinque Terre by bike can be a bit intimidating. From Lucca we will ride to the seaport of La Spezia, then hop a train to the center most of the five villages, Corniglia. The roads west and north of La Spezia are not really made for cyclists -- lots of tunnels and super narrow roads. That would be fine, but the number of cars will be huge.

Once tucked into Corniglia we'll spend a few days walking the coastline to see each of the five villages -- it is only about 10 km from village to village and the paths are supposedly pretty gorgeous.

We arrived in Corniglia yesterday – this is more or less the end point of our serious riding and it is hard to believe that we’re already nearly done. Both of us are tired but feel like continuing to ride but this northern Tyrrhenian coast of Italy is not the ideal place for a bike given the narrow and winding roads (which are the best type to ride) and the heavy, heavy volume of traffic (which is the downside). Our ride so far has covered nearly 1500 km (about 925 miles) and our vertical climbing has been about 21,000 m (around 70,000 feet). That may be the most vertical that we've ever done. Then again, it was covered at a pace that a snail could probably better!

I modified our route from Lucca to Corniglia yesterday to avoid some of the bigger roads that were on the original route. The modifications to the route added the benefit of cutting out one big hill. The total distance was therefore about 95 km but maybe 70 of those were on pancake flat roads. From Lucca we headed directly west to the coast, then turned north toward our destination at the area called Cinque Terra. This is a very popular area where there are five famous little villages (cinque) that cling precipitously to the steep mountains that rise out of the sea. Corniglia is the third village of the five and we can walk from village to village on the trails that have been built.

We made it to the coast pretty quickly – the day was warm and looked to be in the high 30s later. We turned north on the coastal road, which had a nice bike lane and lots of riders. But what amazed both of us was that we rode for a full 30 km along an arrow straight road that was completely flat but we saw the sea only once when we crossed over a bridge and glanced to our left. The road is only about 100 m from the sea but to our left there were 30 km of these beach rental places where you rent a cabana for the day and fry yourself in the sun. To the right of the road there were 30 km of mostly-schmaltzy boxy hotels. In 30 km we saw only one publicly accessible bit of the beach – a sign announced it as being the “Free Beach.” It was the size of a tennis court and was packed with people.

Dropping down the coastal hills to the salt marshes

Riding north along the shore

Seaside or Cannon Beach on steroids

Our only peak at the sea

Being from Oregon, the notion of a private beachfront that is accessible only to paying customers is abhorrent. It made us sad. And to see how many people were jammed onto the free beach just showed how many people would enjoy the beach if it were open the way it ought to be. Through the insight of Tom McCall, Oregon did a lot in the 1970s that was way-forward thinking and which today define Oregon. The Beach Bill, the Bottle Bill, Senate Bill 100, to name a few. The ride along the Italian coast shows how Oregonians need to be vigilant and careful to protect the things that are important!

After the ride along that part of the coast we veered to the northeast while the flat coastal plains gave way to the high mountains that characterize the northwestern coast. La Spezia is a fairly big city that lies in a natural harbor and we needed to cross over a low set of hills to get there. Our new route took us through 2 fairly long tunnels and I was a bit concerned about those, but we had the tail light and head light on mega bright and the road was actually downhill in the tunnels. We flew through at 60 kph and the cars behind us didn’t complain much. When we exited the last tunnel we were in La Spezia. The first thing we saw was about 10 cruise ships in the harbor. They’re so big that they look like sky scrapers lying on their sides.

The port at La Spezia

A busy harbor

Our speed through the town dropped to a crawl as we dodged the cruise ship passengers who plod around the part of the town called the “safe zone” (read: safe for spending $$). The rest of La Spezia outside of the safe zone is gritty. Lots of dive bars and seedy-looking characters. Besides being a stop for cruise ships, this is a big port for all sorts of ships and is a big naval base. I like the looks of La Spezia.

But Cinque Terra is just a few km from La Spezia but is over a high range of coastal hills and the road is almost all tunnel. We never planned to ride this last section of the road so we found the train station and hopped on the train for the 20 minute ride. The train stops at Riomaggiore (the first of the five villages of Cinque Terre), then Manarola, then our stop at Corniglia (the last two villages are called Vernazza and Monterossa al Mare). Corniglia is the only one of the five that does not have a beach of any kind, so it is supposed to be the quieter of the five – one of the reasons that we chose it. It was a short ride from the train station to our AirBnb and we’re settled in for three days of exploring the coast.