The next day we had our breakfast at leisurely pace. The
weather didn’t look good. It was raining a bit at night and in the morning it
war more cloudy than sunny. Still the views from the balcony of the homestay
towards the village of Corniglia was breathtaking. After the breakfast we decided to climb up
towards the church of St. Bernadino. We had the whole day infront of us. Our
plan was to hike around in the national park and visit Corniglia at some point
in the day. We didn’t know the exact hike route towards St. Bernadino. But the
church was visible from a distance and there were signboards pointing the
direction. The only problem was that due to the landslides some of the marked
routes were blocked. We still decided to go up. We reached the church without
much problems and from the village surrounding the church we had a good view of
Corniglia and the surroundings and also a hazy view of the village of Manarola
at a distance.
From there we decided to hike towards Corniglia. As some of
the routes were blocked, the hike became more and more tricky as we proceeded.
There were tracks partly covered by landslides, tracks which were blocked where
we ignored the warning sign boards and finally we landed up in a tarred road.
The road was still going up. When we asked one of the road workers for
directions towards Corniglia he was surprised and pointed towards the opposite direction!!
We decided to proceed further and finally we followed a signboard that pointed
towards the village. We had the direct
view of the village as we trekked down. But after a while the marked path
narrowed, became bushier and reduced to a small track. We were not even sure
whether it was a proper track as the thorny bushes were making our trek
difficult. After a while we completely lost track of what ever track we were
following and there were no more tracks ahead. We really doubted that whatever
tracks we were following in the last hours are probably the tracks of a wild
pig. The thorny bushes were so dense that we were scratched all over our body
and blood was coming out at many places. Funny thing was that we still had the
direct view of the village of Corniglia from a distance. It was too late to
turn back as the track we came was no longer visible. We decided to proceed
ahead getting further scratched by the thorns. Finally we landed up in olive
plantations.
Suddenly I came across a snake lying on the ground. Before I
could warn Bru and show him the snake the startled snake ran away. Not sure
what kind of snake it was. But if I could remember correctly it was having
stripes of black and yellow. So quite adventurous
experience so far in such an unlikely place. After a few meters of walking
through the plantations and climbing down the stone walls we reached a road.
Finally we reached a place where we had a clear idea of how to reach the
village of Corniglia. We sat on the road for some time, eating some fruits and
inspecting our wounds. And then we slowly moved towards the village. Like the
other villages the fishing village of Corniglia was also very charming. Narrow
walking streets and shops, for the tourists of course, and at the end of the
street the endless view of the sea. From
there we could see our next destination – the village of Manarola.
We had our lunch there, had some beer, which we definitely
earned after our hard day in the bush, and relaxed for a while. We also bought
some postcards to send back. Then we started walking towards our homestay at
around 1.30 pm from there. The route was easy as it was clearly marked. And
walking along the edges of the mountain with the sea on one side and beautiful
landscape on the other side was a wonderful experience. When we were back in
our place it was around 4 pm. Both of us were exhausted. We cooked some
spaghetti and opened our second wine bottle and relaxed watching the sunset,
the starts and the illumination at the village of Corniglia from a distance.
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