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Saladman posted:I've been to Cinque Terre in August and in May, and both times specifically Vernazza was jam-packed with tourists from about 9am->3/4pm. After that it tends to quiet down a lot. Corniglia is also particularly MUCH quieter, because it's a long (vertical 150m+?) walk from the train station to the town so tour groups of retirees don't go there. There must be some guidebook that says "get to cinque terre as early in the morning as possible to avoid the crowds", which results in all the crowds arriving early in the morning, and then by mid-afternoon it's largely cleared out because there's really not that much to do in Cinque Terre and there are only two distinctly different types of town there (the seaside ones like Vernazza and the mountainside ones like Corniglia). There are also a bunch of other little towns that don't officially make it into the "five" of cinque terre for unclear reasons, even though they're in the park. They're also far less touristy. We spent a couple hours in Volastra, and even in mid-August it was super quiet and there were only Italian speakers there. We drove, but it'd be easy to get to from Manarola if you're reasonably in shape. I would not under any circumstance recommend driving to Cinque Terre though. The train is a million times faster. Saladman posted:I've spent a lot of time in Italy, mostly all over the north, but also to most of the touristy areas further down except for the islands. But anyways, Cinque Terra was super nice when I ws there, this would have been about last week of July and I didn't find it super touristy at all. I could walk on the trail and not see more than a handful of people tops and could easily walk around all the towns with mostly bumping into what seemed to be mostly locals and some tourists. There was a beach with a semi-hidden alcove with a large slab of rock (i think outside Corniglio) that was so great to chill at, I'd just drinnk wine/limoncello and chill in the water reading a book and no one was there to bother you. It was easily my favorite place I visited, but I think thats because it still felt like a lived-in local area and just unique with not a lot of people to spoil the whole thing. Now this was pre Air-BNB and pinterest and instagram and whatevers so I'm sure things have changed a lot in the last 8 years. Which is sad to hear because I always wanted to go back thre with my gf since I had such a great time, but if it's that crazy then yeah I don't think I'd enjoy it since I hate tourist crowds. I liked Florence but I also just did a weekend trip and imo 2-days was more than enough. It was fairly busy but I still thought it was worth seeing and I didn't have to fight back hordes to do or see anything which was nice. I agree Venice is much more unique though, I'd highly recommend staying the night in Venice. There was something magical about wandering around at night in the dead silence and no one else being around, which was eerie but cool. Xaris fucked around with this message at 21:02 on Apr 24, 2018 |
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Apr 24, 2018 20:55
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That's too bad, it was a fantastic trail and very pleasant way to spend a whole day just hiking, checking out one, hiking back, doing the other. I didn't do the train thing at all when I was there and just hiked. I also don't recall it being overloaded with sovereign shops, in fact that was one thing I liked is it felt a little more authentic with mostly some hint of tourism. So I can see how that all changing has easily completely ruined the experience. yeah maybe. I'm also a very much anti-disneyland level of tourist-crowds person. Although florence did also die down at night too, but not as awesome as it did at Venice where it was completely dead. Again I think it helped it wasn't too busy even during peak-summer then. You are probably right it's not really worth doing if it's actually that superbusy, tho I'd say doable in a day-trip (stay the night) by train if you want to and leaves you closer to hittnig up another place the next day. The one place I did go which I absolutely hated was Sorrento, it was basically middle-age white cruise boomers everywhere for no apparent reason. Nice party-heavy hostel we stayed at tho.
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Apr 24, 2018 23:35
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GreenNight posted:No Italy for me. Now ex gf said it’s getting too serious and broke it off. Cool. Goondolences man, sorry to hear that. I hope you didn't buy the tickets already  maybe she thought you were going to propose because that's basically the cliche way it goes
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May 9, 2018 05:06
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