Our week in the CT

Ron
Were the hiking trails all open and in decent condition? I'd read that they were closed recently due to storm damage,etc. We'll be spending 3 nights in Riomaggiore next week, can't wait. Any great breakfast places in Riomaggiore? Other recommendations as far as where to eat?

Hi Karen,

We had alot of rain when we were there and the trail going into the mountain on the beachside of Riomaggiore was closed as was the trail from Monterosso to Vernazza.The Via del Amore was open. The others I don't know about.How bad the damage was I'm not sure.

The breakfast at our hotel was pretty awful so we would either get some focaccia bread and an espresso somewhere on Via Colombo or I found a small bar on one of the side streets that was pretty quiet,freindly people and decently priced. It's a small yellow building on the same road as the church and municiple building,2 green doors and has a sundial hanging on the front of it. No signs with a name but you should be able to find it pretty easily if you want to give it a try.

While I thought that for the most part the prices didn't match the portions at the restaurants we did try the La Lanterna, La Lampara and the Dau Cila in Riomaggiore,Il Cassello in Monterosso and two places in Manarola which I forget the names of. One is right on one of the corners of Piazza Capellini and the other is going down towards the harbor,righthand side with a glassed in porch type front.The food was great at all. Other than that we either ate pizza (my kids liked the pizza...kids!)or bought food to eat in the room. We did stop in the Al Castello in Vernazza to take a break from walking around. It's pretty expensive. Three cokes and 2 very small gelato's cost us 20 Euro.

I know you'll enjoy it and hope you have better weather than we did.

Ciao,
Ron

"Any great breakfast places?" Ron from Dallas is not the first traveler to notice that the Italian concept of breakfast (especially the free ones) seems to be, uhm, really different from the American concept.

The Via dell'Amore that Ron mentions--just to clarify--is the 20 minute flat "trail" (walkway) from Riomaggiore to Manarola--and is not one of the longer hill trails that you may be thinking of.

Any great breakfast place in Italy is one that 1) has cappuccino, 2) has fresh "brioche," which can be almost any pastry, and 3) has a free place to sit. When I feel the need for protein for breakfast, I have a piece of cheese that I have brought from my room. I have seen one or two places in the CT (Monterosso, I think) that had a breakfast buffet for about 10 Euros. I've never had a decent breakfast delivered at a B&B. Cold coffee and stale, packaged pastries do not make a desirable breakfast as far as I am concerned. Most bars in Italy will have coffee and brioche in the morning.

Only once we had a breakfast that American travellers could recognize as something similar to what they are used to with quite an extensive choice of food items. Coincidentally, that was in La Spezia at Hotel Ghironi which was our base to explore the CT for a day. And it was the place with the worst coffee we've ever had in Italy. Which also sounds very American ;-)

This is turning into an Italian breakfast thread. :>)

We actually had an easier time with breakfasts in Italy than France, and we actually learned it in Vernazza. We picked up a carton of blood orange juice from a little store, got some cheese, the picked up coffee and pastry from a cafe. They allowed us to take the coffee/pastry out to the square, where we enjoyeda sunny fresh morning before the tours began to arrive. We kept using this plan through the rest of our time in Italy (sometimes substituting pizza for a piece of cheese), but nowhere ever matched our breakfast in Vernazza for scenery!

well, I guess I'll have to readjust my expectations for "breakfast" there!! We'll have an apt in Florence so maybe can actually cook some eggs there for a few days :-) Anyway I hope we don't get the rain while we're in CT-that would sort of put a damper on things. Thanks for all the input!

"well, I guess I'll have to readjust my expectations for "breakfast" there!"

Yep. You go to UK B&B's for good breakfasts. You go to Italy to scrape your rental car on the side of buildings on those narrow roads...no, I mean, to enjoy great art.