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Cinque Terre is a Unesco World Heritage site (it became a Unesco site in 1997). The area includes the National Park and the protected marine area.

Cinque Terre are not the classical tourist resort, it’s not an “all inclusive paradise” where everything is planned and organized (not because I don’t like this kind of vacation, but here it’s something different). Everything here is like it was in the past. I mean, few things have been influenced by tourism. In fact, the beauties of the Cinque terre are due to the fact that they are far away from the traffic and the stress of the cities.

This territory was long isolated and the characteristic Ligurian culture has been conserved. The five towns were only reached by the outside world about one hundred years ago, when the railway line was built. Once they communicated between them only thanks to the paths.

The main attraction of the Cinque Terre is the landscape. Here Mediterranean trees and plants grow up spontaneously. For this reason, the Cinque Terre represent one of the best preserved natural areas of the Mediterranean.

Cinque Terre are famous also for the steep terraced hillsides overlooking the sea. The terraced hillsides are dry walls that keep the steep hills from falling into the sea. It has been calculated that the miles of terrace walls have the same amount of stonework as the Great Wall of China!

On the terraces, wine growers still use monorail mechanism to ferry themselves up and the grapes down these unique lands (in some cases by boat). You know, building the terraces is a hard work and I think somehow so crazy. If they aren’t well done, they will quite litteraly slide down into the sea.

The Cinque Terre’s landscape influenced and inspired many artists. P.B.Shelley, DH Lawrence, Lord Byron and several renowned writers have settled right here for inspiration over the generations.

Lord Byron called this place “The paradise on earth”.