I'm working on the details of our itinerary, or at least a list of things to do (we don't want to over schedule ourselves) and I'm trying to figure out what trails we are going to hike.

Here's our situation. It's me, DH, MIL and 3 little kids. The baby is easy: we have a Kelty backpack and DH is a great backpacker. Problem solved. The other two children are almost-4 and almost-6. They are decent walkers as we live in Germany and take them walking weekly and both have done 10 K "Volksmarches" with minimal whining. Now, I realize that the 5T trails have a ton of up and down so that changes things and will suck some of their energy, compared to the somewhat leisurely trails we walk here. The other member of this cast of characters is my 54 year old MIL who is a decent walker, but I know she's not going to listen to me and won't bring good walking shoes.

I know that we can all do the Via dell'Amore from Riomaggiore to Manarola, so that's definitely on the list.

My question is this. Of the other 3 legs of the 5T trails (Manarola-Corniglia, Corniglia-Vernazza, Vernazza-Monterosso), are any of them appropriate for my almost-4 year old and almost-6 year old? We have 4 days of our trip dedicated to relaxing, beach-bumming, and hiking so we don't have to race to do all of the legs of the 5T hike in one day or one shot. DH and I are planning to leave all 3 kids with MIL and do the entire hike (Riomaggiore to Monterosso) alone, but I'd love to take the boys on a few more hikes.

Perhaps there's another hike in the area that is better for the boys. My biggest concern is their safety. My 3 year old is tough, but clutzy and I don't want to watch him go diving off a cliff. I'm concerned about their little ankles too, if the trails are too rocky. They are tough, but this trip is NOT about making them (or mom and dad) miserable because we dragged them along on a too-difficult trail.

The good news is that we do have grandma with us and we can always send her ahead on the train or boat with the boys while DH and I (and the baby in the backpack) hike from one town to the next.

Loie and I walked the Monterosso > Vernazza in about three hours. We stop and gawk a lot. The trail surface itself is very good: gravel, worn smooth stone, packed earth. Sections are narrow, and a running child could easily go over the edge and end up in the sea a couple hundred feet below. He wouldn't be likely to slip and fall on bad trail surface, but he could get too enthusiastic and find the edge before he realized it. Most of that stretch is completely exposed to the sun; it was blazing hot in May and we were parched despite several bottles of water in our day packs. There are a few places where the trail becomes steps, pehaps a hundred or less each. Fairly steep, but we middle aged folks did it reasonably easy.

Overall, while the scenery is pretty, the trail itself as a walk was not that interesting. It winds in and out of large coves or tiny bays and goes up and down some, but each individual stretch is a bit monotonous. You have to walk, or see, the whole thing to appreciate the change in scenery. We met a pair of young women who had walked from the far southern end in only a little more than the time we spent on the most northern bit, and they said it was getting much more rugged as they went. Remember that the trail was established as a road between towns, a way to get back and forth. It takes the path of least resistance through some very pretty scenery, but isn't intended to go from one particularly scenic spot or best vantage point to the next. I'm glad we did it, as one of those experiences you need to have in order to know whether you might like them or not, but wouldn't recommend anyone go out of their way to walk all the way from M to V if they had other interests in the area.

I'd much more recommend a ferry ride from M to V, dinner at the Tower restaurant above town, and a 2-minute train ride back. I wish we had had time to do THAT, because the prettiest view of that stretch of coast we had was from the "Tower" restaurant in Vernazza! I'd say that unless you all feel a burning need to add it to your lifelist NOW, the Monterossa > Vernazza stretch might be a bit much for your family to truly "appreciate."

Let the kids hang out with MIL while you hike. Once you hit the trails you will have a better idea of what they are like and whether you want the young ones to tag along. What I remember most vividly from our September 2004 trip are the crowds. While most of the hikers did their best to be polite, we too often ran into folks blithly swinging their pointy metal walking poles about, oblivious to the safety of others.

Jeanne

I still have vivid memories when I turned around on the CT trails and realized that my teen aged daughter had disappeared. Fortunately her fall was stopped by some bushes and I was able to reach her and get her back on the trail. This was on a section that was not a sheer cliff face drop off. After that I made her walk in front of me. I stongly advise not taking the children.

Taking (or trying to take) your children on a hike in the CT is not a good idea. Several of the paths are very difficult - even for the very fit. The only paths you should consider with them are Riomaggiore-Manarola and Manarola-Corniglia as they are both fairly flat. But as someone else suggested, I would leave them with your mother in law and do one or two alone.

Thanks for the info and advice, everyone. We'll definitely do the Riomaggiore-Manarola with MIL and the kids and MAYBE do the Manarola-Corniglia one with them. Otherwise, it sounds like a great reason for the kids to hang out with Nana and for Dh and I to have some time alone on the other trails.