Cinque Terre, a little slice of the Ligurian coast south of Genoa, is a trendy destination. Good news for the economy of the locals. And also for the many visitors, who now have a wide range of options to get to know the five beautiful towns: Monterosso al Mare, Venazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore.
But obviously large crowds have their consequences. There are days when it is difficult to take the most colorful panoramic photo of Manarola, just as it is necessary to avoid tourists while strolling through the picturesque port of Vernazza. In addition, you have to be patient to taste the tasty local anchovies in the restaurants of Riomaggiore or it becomes impossible to hear the silence when you ascend the almost 400 steps that lead to the elevated nucleus of Corniglia.
And when the summer heat hits, only a privileged few manage to take shelter under the vintage umbrellas available on the beach of Monterosso al Mare. The quintessential beach of the Cinque Terre that captures the tourist history of this stretch of the Ligurian coastline. For centuries a practically isolated territory, to which only, over time, some traveler who enjoyed some corners anchored in the past arrived. However, at present these sensations are priced very high by tourists avid for clichés.
Melting beauty, romanticism and a decadent atmosphere is the great claim of Cinque Terre. They are old populations with facades as simple as they are showy. Let no one look for the usual great monuments in Italy. None of that, here you will only find humble houses, but with captivating personality. Each building painted a different shade. Each one erect as he can on the escarpments of the terrain. The houses and streets are scattered across a vertiginous landscape, which descends towards the blue of the Mediterranean.
The most famous television travelers echo these charms. The American Rick Steves or the British Michael Portillo, accompanied by his inseparable Guide Bradshaw, have brought the spell of Cinque Terre to the screens of half the world. Her attractions also appear in countless magazines and travel blogs. At the same time, celebrities have discovered the magic of the place to their followers, such as Chiara Ferragni, the most international Italian influencer who immortalized a luxurious stay in Manarola on networks.
If you add to that the exclusive touch of appearing in a Hollywood blockbuster, the tourist campaign is complete. Even more so if it is a movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio, who sailed off Riomaggiore to shoot The Wolf of Wall Street with Scorsese.
This is all a new phenomenon. Cinque Terre was not known, nor was it visited. The cliffs, the sea and the rugged landscapes isolated these populations. Even with the Roman Empire they were “irreducible†villages with hardly any Latin influence. Unlike much of Italy, archeology or citations from Latin chroniclers are scarce here. Only Pliny the Younger reports that the port of Vernazza was ideal for loading ships with amphoras full of oil and also wine.
That wine united the region with the outside world. No one traveled to the Cinque Terre, but its wines were drunk throughout Europe. And they are even immortalized in landmarks of medieval literature. Petrarch or Boccaccio wrote about that wine in the tales of the Decameron. And Dante mentions it in The Divine Comedy. Not only that, the Tuscan poet knew the Ligurian region and was inspired by the Cinque Terre escarpments to imagine the gloomy passages of his literary Purgatory.
The vine is still cultivated on tiny terraces won with great effort from the abrupt relief. Perhaps that is why they produce strong wines such as the sweet wine Schiaccetrà , “deeply sensual” in the mouth of the poet Gabriele d’Annunzio. It is almost a liqueur for desserts after a banquet of typical dishes. In other words, the essential pasta, which here means trenette and trofie with pesto alla genovese. And of course a fresh fish, if possible seasonal anchovies or cuttlefish.
Perhaps a famous traveler tasted such dishes. Lord Byron himself, who sailed to the Cinque Terre from his residence in the neighboring Gulf of Poets, a few miles to the south. And when contemplating these little towns from the sea, his natural intrepidity would make him disembark to discover some villages that rarely had foreigners on their streets. He even missed the presence of Italians from other regions.
The opening to the world came in the middle of the 19th century with the railway. In it came Telemaco Signorini, a painter of the macchiaioli movement, prior to impressionism. Signorini wandered through La Spezia, a city south of the Cinque Terre, where he was astonished by some women in colorful costumes. Amazed, he couldn’t help himself and asked them where he came from. They were from a place he had never heard of: Riomaggiore. So he didn’t hesitate to take the train and get there in a few kilometers. After that first trip, he returned more times to paint, using stains (macchia), masterpieces of that precursor artistic style of modernity in Italy.
The muses of the Cinque Terre also captivated Eugenio Montale, Nobel Prize for Literature in 1975. This Genoese spent his childhood in Monterosso and never forgot his experiences by the sea: “The house of my youthful summers, -you know- was by your side , there on earth where the sun burns, and mosquitoes darken the air.
A typically Mediterranean summer that Enrico Casarosa has also enjoyed a lot. This filmmaker recently directed the animated film Luca. And he used the settings of his vacation: squares, views, fountains and colors of the Cinque Terre, to set the scene for Disney-Pixar. Seeing Luca is contemplating a compendium of the best of these five locations, which will undoubtedly continue to be in fashion for another season.
In the Cinque Terre there are quite a few hotel places, although it is more comfortable (and cheaper) to look for accommodation outside. The town of Levanto is highly recommended. It is supposed to be at the northern entrance to the tourist complex and has many hotels, hostels and apartments. In addition, the Cinque Terre train stops and the path that leads to Monterosso begins. It must be remembered that it is a protected space that can only be traveled on foot or by train.
While Levanto can be reached by public transport, but also by private vehicle, including motorhomes and campers, for which there are several campsites. As if that were not enough, Levanto has a wide, perfectly equipped beach, a suggestive restaurant offer, and an attractive walk along the coast to reach the lively town of Bonassola by bike or on foot.
