There is a particular kind of morning you only get on your last one somewhere. You wake before the alarm, the light already warm against the shutters, and instead of a list of things to see you have only one…
italy
Where to Stay in Cinque Terre
Where you sleep in Cinque Terre shapes the whole trip, because the magic here happens at the edges of the day. Stay in one of the villages and you get the golden hour after the day-trippers leave and the early…
Hiking Cinque Terre: The Blue Trail and Via dell’Amore
Walking is half the reason to come to Cinque Terre. The five villages are linked by a network of paths cut into the terraces above the sea, and covering even one section on foot turns a train-hop tour into a…
How to Get to Cinque Terre and Get Around
Cinque Terre is one of those places whose whole character comes from being slightly difficult to reach. No motorway runs through the five villages, the roads that do exist are slow and high above the coast, and the easiest way…
The Perfect Cinque Terre Itinerary: 2 to 3 Days
The whole of Cinque Terre is barely eleven kilometres of coast, and the train between the two furthest villages takes under twenty minutes, which fools people into thinking they can “do” it in a day. You can, technically, and feel…
The Best Photo Spots in Cinque Terre
Cinque Terre is one of the most photographed corners of Italy, and for once the photographs do not oversell it. Five villages stacked in pink and ochre above a turquoise sea, terraced vineyards climbing impossible slopes, boats tipped up in…
The Long Way Between the Villages
There is a kind of tiredness that feels like a reward, and this morning I went looking for it on the cliff path above Vernazza. I had promised myself the night before, over the last of the wine, that I…
When to Visit Cinque Terre: A Month by Month Guide
Cinque Terre is beautiful in every season, but it is a very different place in June than in November, and choosing the right month is the difference between a trip that feels like a discovery and one that feels like…
The Best Beaches in Cinque Terre
Cinque Terre is famous for its cliffs, its trails and its five stacked villages, but people are often surprised to learn it is also a place you can swim. It is not a classic sand-and-sunbeds coast, with one clear exception,…
Let the Sea Keep the Time
There is only one of these five villages where you can properly lie down beside the sea, so this morning I did the sensible thing and went there. Vernazza has its little harbour and its boats, but it does not…
The Complete Guide to Cinque Terre
Cinque Terre means “the five lands,” and that is exactly what it is: five small villages strung along a stretch of the Ligurian coast so steep and so folded that for most of their history the easiest way between them…
Somewhere Smaller
Florence let me go the way the great cities always do, without ceremony, as though it had never really been holding on. One morning I was beneath all that marble and the next I was on a train heading toward…
