Bella Italia! Who doesn’t know Italy, who doesn’t love Italy? It is a country of wine, excellent cuisine, and rich history after all. It can take a lifetime to explore all the exciting places in Italy, especially if you travel slowly and meaningfully as you should. But no matter how much time you have, Italy is always worth a visit.
Cinque Terre is a national park in Liguria, a region in the northwest of Italy situated just south of Genova. It is not only a national park but home to five distinct villages, also called “Cinque Terre” – the five villages – by locals and foreigners alike. These places are called Vernazza, Riomaggiore, Monterosso, Corniglia, and Manarola. So what’s so special about them? For a long period of time, they were only reachable from the sea by boat. Nowadays, there is a train line connecting all of them, and the time to go from one to the other is usually just a couple of minutes. Imagine a subway line, but instead of connecting different neighborhoods of one city, you can be in different towns along a beautiful coast in mere minutes. Another possibility to travel between these places is to hike. That’s one of the primary reasons why people like to come to Cinque Terre; they hike from one place to the other and take the train back later on. It’s so incredibly easy!
For information about Porto Venere please refer to the previous post. In this one, we take another walk through the town and discover new corners of a lovely little Italian village. Photographed in July 2021.
Portovenere is situated at the southern end of a peninsula. It consists of some islands and the former fishing village itself. Close by there is a larger town called La Spezia. Nonetheless, Portovenere seems remote, and you don’t really notice to be in the vicinity of a reasonably substantial metropole. The town is famous for visitors staying a couple of hours but also for guests spending their entire vacation right here.
Riomaggiore, one of the five towns commonly known collectively as Cinque Terre, is a lovely place. Indeed, you can see the whole city in a few hours; there is the main street with all the shops and restaurants, but there are also lovely walkways in the north and south of the center with a beautiful church and changing perspectives at the port and at the sea. Sure, you can stay an hour or two, but Riomaggiore offers enough to stay one weekend or even longer. In any case, Take it slow and enjoy it the Italian way! There must be some time for wine and pasta in between, that’s for sure.
Being in Cinque Terre you cannot stop to marvel at the beauty of nature in this particular spot on our planet. There is the deep blue sea, the endless hills with steep cliffs, and the green forest and endless vineyards. In between, there are little humans running around, seeming all but insignificant in the larger scheme of things. The power of nature can be genuinely felt here.
Michael Hoffman Photography 