Cinque Terre – the most beautiful place in the world? We think so!

After the wild world of Miami, Cinque Terre was a complete contrast. It was serene and peaceful and stunningly beautiful. This was a great thing as our luggage was lost in Lisbon! However, hats off to the Air Handling company at Milan Airport – they delivered. They delivered right to our doorstep in Riomaggiore one of the villages in Cinque Terre where we were staying – amazing service.

Back to Cinque Terre. As the name suggests, Cinque (five) Terre (lands) has five different villages of equal but different beauty that can be reached by walking (for the young and fit or just silly) by boat or by train. We took the train. Each stop was literally a few minutes apart and the trains ran every 15 minutes – easy! The five villages are: Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Moterosso in North East Italy (Italian Riveria).

Each village is perched on a cliff edge and is made up of churches and tall buildings of lots of different colours. The villages have slightly different aspects that set them apart, for example, Monterosso has beaches that you can sit on and beautiful water to swim in, Corniglia has a million steps to get up to it (well about 387), and Vernazza has a lovely fishing port and a very small beach which is not designed for lounging around on with a towel and umbrella. The population of the towns are not high (a few thousands at the largest, the others only a few hundred) but have millions of visitors a year. The water is clear so you can see the bottom of the ocean and is lovely to swim in on a warm day. Everywhere you look you you get amazing views. Each village uses terracing to grow fruit and vegetable but also lots of grapevines. Cinque Terre has its own wine makers and some speciality wines such as the dessert wine Sciacchetra. The region also produces other dry white table wines which are also really great.

We were surprised at the number of tourists at this time of year (mostly from Italy and the USA) but that did not dampen the experience. We also noticed that there is no grass or flat areas for the children to play, outside every church in the piazza is where kids from toddlers to teens kick the ball, ride scooters and play, on the stone square.

Please enjoy our photos of, what I believe, is the most beautiful place I have ever seen. We will definitely be back to visit Cinque Terre again.