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Cinque Terre + Portofino see + do
If you like spectacular scenery, great walks, and good food and wine, you'll love the Cinque Terre. Portofino has all these things, too, but the impossibly picturesque fishing port here adds international yacht-set glamour to the mix. At the eastern end of the Italian Riviera, just before the Gulf of La Spezia, the five villages known as the Cinque Terre (meaning five lands, or territories) occupy one of the most spectacular stretches of coastline on the Italian mainland. Only the Amalfi Coast can compete in terms of sheer natural grandeur. But the Cinque Terre have one advantage over their southern rival: There's no coast road. Instead, the five villages are connected by train via a series of tunnels, and by a well-trodden network of footpaths. You can walk for miles along the beautiful coastline undisturbed by cars as you pass from village to village, stop in a trattoria for lunch, and get the train back to where you started. See individual descriptions of the five Cinque Terre villages, which are, from east to west, Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and Monterosso al Mare.
Monterosso is the only one of the Cinque Terre villages that even begins to resemble a seaside resort. Significantly larger than the other four villages, and...more
Though it's not strictly one of the Cinque Terre villages, it would be a shame to miss out on a visit to historic Portovenere. The town lies just around the...more
Riomaggiore is the closest of the five villages to the urban sprawl and naval dockyards of La Spezia—which provide employment for a number of...more
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