Laundry Day in Vernazza

Laundry hangs from the clotheslines of apartments in beautiful Vernazza, Italy

We decided to bypass Corniglia and skip straight to Vernazza. Corniglia is one of the towns of the Cinque Terre but it sits up on a hill and I wanted to experience the towns that were directly on the water. Vernazza was high on my list based on the research that I had done in preparation for our trip.

Vernazza was only a short train ride away, but we had quite a wait on a crowded train platform to get there. Unfortunately, the trains weren’t running as frequently as they would in a months time yet there were already thousands of tourists visiting the Cinque Terre. Ultimately, we made our way onto a crowded train for the short ride up the coast.

Our plan was to meet our friends Sherry and Wes at a local restaurant for lunch. They had visited the area before and wanted to go to Pisa before heading to Vernazza. The train schedule conspired against our meeting, though, and we had lunch on our own. While we were waiting for them, I scouted the small plaza of the town and immediately spied this scene. The buildings are wonderful enough, but the addition of laundry hanging gave the town a very homespun vibe.

I’ll be posting more from Vernazza. I can’t decide if I prefer Vernazza to Manarola, but I can say that if you visit the region you owe it to yourself to visit both. They really are jewels in the already beautiful northern Italian crown. Enjoy.