The Cinque Terre is a rugged portion of coast on the Italian Riviera. It is in the Liguria region of Italy, to the west of the city of La Spezia. "The Five Lands" is composed of five villages: Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore. The coastline, the five villages, and the surrounding hillsides are all part of the Cinque Terre National Park and it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Over the centuries, people have carefully built terraces on the rugged, steep landscape right up to the cliffs that overlook the sea. Part of it's charm is the lack of visible corporate development. Paths, trains and boats connect the villages, and cars cannot reach them from the outside.
The Levanto campsite to the north of the Cinque Terre was a bit of an eye opener... the entrance was a tight squeeze through a narrow rock passage where we had the unfortunate luck of meeting a large caravan exiting the site so a Mexican stand off took place until one of the randomly littered cars parked by the entrance moved and allowed for a resolution. The allotted pitch was no bigger than the van's dimensions, common place in Italy, and covered by trees. The site was more bedouin village than the normal campsites we had been used to. It was also rammed with minimal sanitary facilities, oh well we would only be here for three days.
The first day we decided to walk to Monterosso al Mare from Levanto a 16km round trip walk along cliff paths with stunning views of cliffs and sea.
The view down to Monterosso al Mare, oh yes and the walk back up took 1hr.
After our first outing into the National Park we stopped off in Levanto for a quick drink as the thought of returning to the bedouhin village was best approached with a few drinks. On ordering our drinks we were presented with some fantastic tapas, all free and part of the normal accompaniments to a drink, very civilised.
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