Cinque Terre, Italy’s five cliff-top towns.

Cinque Terre, Unveiled

Just one Italian cliff-top town overlooking the sea is usually more than sufficient to delight the average tourist. The more demanding traveler might want to see two or three.

Today, tourists come from far and wide to taste the area's white wines and olive oils.

And for those people who believe two scoops of ice cream are simply a tease and a good pair of shoes should be bought in every color, there are the five villages of Cinque Terre on Italy's Ligurian coast, an area made up of colorful towns dotting cliff sides, strung together by a path that winds through protected parkland.

A thousand years ago, their small size made these towns an appealingly vulnerable part of Italy's coastline, frequently attacked by Turkish pirates who coveted the famed vino made from grapes grown on the area's steep cliffs. Today, tourists come from far and wide to taste the area's white wines and olive oils.
Pillaging is merely optional.

Walking, however, is hard to avoid. The towns are linked by several footpaths, the most famous of which runs along the coast for approximately 8 miles.

"It's a great day trip if you want to get some exercise, especially if you've spent your vacation lazing at a hotel pool and eating," says Nancy Strong, owner of Strong Travel in Dallas, TX, a company that organizes trips to the area. "If you think back to when it all started, you think 'Wow, how did people used to live on the edge of these cliffs? It's extraordinary. They must've been very healthy!'"

The standard walk around the area begins at the town of Riomaggiore, goes up a romantic path called, of course, "Via dell'Amore" to the picturesque town of Manarola, then on to Corniglia (located on a hill), Vernazza (slightly more touristy than the others), and Monterosso (a beach town). It takes 5 hours, a good portion of it uphill. For those who just are not willing to kick off their new Prada shoes, there's a train that runs on the136-year-old tracks that winds from town to town, as well as boats that depart from most of the villages.

The most important thing you'll do as soon as you land in any of the towns? Mange! Virtually every restaurant serves trenette (a thin, flat pasta) covered by the region's renowned pesto, which towers above all others in Italy due to the superior nature of the area's amazing basil, flavored by the salty breeze off the Mediterranean. Even the Ligurian basil's color is extraordinary - a fresh, vibrant, springtime green.

Each town is also swarming with so many shops selling fine local food products that the kid-in-a-candy-store phenomenon is raised to a meta-level: lemon marmalade, pesto, truffle oil . . .

A little food shopping, a few scoops of gelato, then what? Well, you could go back to your inland hotel . . . or not; there are still four more towns waiting to be discovered.

Posted on June 19, 2006