Liguria, a region located in northwestern Italy, is not as well known as Tuscany or Umbria. And Cinqueterre, composed of the five towns of Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore which run along the Mediterranean coast between Portofino and La Spezia, is even less well known. However, despite the lack of fame, or perhaps because of it, it is an area well worth investigating.
We spent nine days hiking terraced trails (often through local vineyards) that crisscrossed the five towns and the countryside around them. Since accommodations within the five towns themselves are limited, we stayed at hotels on either end of Cinqueterre.
Each day's hiking was punctuated by lunch, either a picnic eaten overlooking the emerald sea or oven-fresh focaccia and home-made soup with the light, dry Cinqueterre DOC wine in a restaurant in one of the five towns. After a week of moderately challenging hikes, we pampered ourselves with a two-night stay at the Hotel Splendido in Portofino, a luxurious Relais et Chateaux property.
Very little travel information is available for Cinqueterre. Some of the best can be found in an article that appeared in the September 1992 issue of Gourmet magazine. The author of that article referred me to Rick Steves' Best of Italy which had all of 10 pages devoted to the area, but that was more than any other guide. Several adventure travel companies, Wilderness Travel and Butterfield and Robinson in particular, sponsor walks interspersed with train and/or ferry rides between the towns. ----Sandy