Viva Italia part II: Cinque Terre

Where do I even begin? Cinque Terre is really and truly my happy place. It was hard to leave. Really hard. I very seriously considered quitting my job and trading in my international activist life for something more humble, perhaps as a fisherman's wife or a restauranteur.

So what exactly is this magical place, you ask? Well, Cinque Terre means "5 lands", and that's exactly what it is - 5 small fishing villages along the northern coast of Italy, not far from Pisa.

The villages are fairly touristy, but they still maintain a lot of their authenticity, and I was lucky enough to visit during off-season when things weren't too crowded. There are no cars allowed in the narrow and steep village streets, so most people travel between towns by foot, boat or train.

We stayed in Riomaggiore, the most southern of the 5 villages and probably my favourite.

The streets are amazingly narrow, cobblestoned and twisty - more often than not, you have to climb stairs to make it from one block to the next. The village really is built on the side of a cliff, with a marina at the bottom and vineyards at the top. The other towns - Vernazza, Monterosso, Corniglia and Monterola - are variously built at the bottom or halfway up other steep stretches of the coastline.

There are lots of amazing small markets and shops with really fresh food & delicious local wine. In Riomaggiore you will also find what I'm convinced is the most delicious pesto ever created.



I'm going back someday for that pesto. And the wine. I also hear that the steaks are also great in Tuscany, but of course I couldn't vouch for that.

Another great feature is the beautiful and unique public art everywhere. A lot of the residents are artists (those not in the tourism business) and it shows. We kept coming across frescoed walls and big painted murals. Even train stations and tunnels were muraled!

However, the most amazing thing to see was the Mediterranean itself. Even in late October, it wasn't too cold to go swimming. The water alternates between deep blue & this gorgeous shade of turquoise.

The towns we visited were all built on the edge of pretty steep cliffs plunging right into the sea. Since the land is so steep, the towns' residents developed a terraced system of agriculture, almost like Indonesian rice fields.


Today, the whole area is a UNESCO world heritage site, and agriculturalists from all over volunteer come to help restore some of the abandoned terraced vineyards and farms.

Since the whole area is a national park, there are great hiking trails which connect all five towns. Unfourtunately we weren't able to explore the most well-known stretch, the Via dell'Amore, because of an unfourtunatelt timed mudslide, but we did get in lots of other great hiking. The paths climb along the side of cliffs and meander through olive groves - I saw my first olive trees!


J.O. was disappointed that he couldn't eat the olives right off the trees, but not being such a big olive fan myself, I didn't much mind. There were also huge, prehistoric looking cacti and aloe plants scattered here and there among the pine trees.


The day we went hiking was a bit cloudy and grey so the picture here doesn't even begin to do the view justice, but here's the idea of what we saw while we were tramping along. It was pretty much hills and sky and oceans the whole way.

And here are the tired but happy hikers at the end of the day, on the top of a hill overlooking Vernazza, another town in Cinque Terre.

Which brings us to Liz's zen lesson of the week: there is nothing quite like enjoying a nice glass of wine on a terrace high above the mediterranean while watching the sun set. I hope that you, too, can find your happy place, since I certainly discovered mine this weekend.