Hi Stevites
Heading to Monterosso April 20-23. Right now, forecast looks pretty wet and our planned hiking trips may be sidetracked/reduced. Question, if you were in Cinque Terre with poor weather -what would you do? I`m thinking day trip to Genoa might be one good alternative but am hoping to gather some more ideas.
Thanks as always for your help. P.S. we don`t have a car
Mike
DC
If the weather is bad in the CT, there is not too much to do.
This is the problem with the CT in April, which is a transitional weather month there.
Rain in the CT might be a time to spend lots of time in the room, with a bottle of Italian wine, cheese, bread, and (as the poem says) "thou beside me." ;-)
Sounds like more fun than Genoa. Put the rain time to good use.
BTW, many Italian hotels that I visited on tour last fall posted weather reports from a particularly sunny-minded weather service. The weather.com app was more accurate in predicting rain during that trip, for short-term forecasts.
Hopefully the rain doesn't keep coming like what happened a few years ago, when the resulting floods devastated some of the towns, but the infrastructure has been modernized to better deal with it now.
IF you were planning on doing some hiking and IF you have the appropriate clothing and IF you didn't mind a little rain, (and IF the trail is open, because it was closed for repairs when were there), part of the trail from Riomaggiore to Manarola (the Via del Amore) is paved, so you wouldn't have to deal with mud. The train will get you to Riomaggiore.
A day trip to Genoa would be a good idea. We spent 5 nights there a couple of years ago and plan to return to see what we missed the first time round. There is more than enough to fill a day there and this website will provide you with ideas.
A few years ago we were in Monterroso around the exact same time. We started hiking to Vernazza an just about the time we got to Vernazza the skies opened up and we hurried down the hill into the town and went into a restaurant and it just poured all through lunch, then stopped and we were fine the rest of the day. So maybe you will just get off and on spring showers and not a whole day of rain.
Genoa is fun with its food markets, Nuovo Strada museums, the Museum of the Sea, as well as a good aquarium. La Spezia has an active open food market, shopping, a nice waterfront, and some good museums. Look at this article http://www.apathtolunch.com/2014/06/la-spezia-travel-guide-top-ten.html
Another option is to go to Pisa & Lucca or Florence!
