The Cinque Terre

Monterosso: 8km (5 miles) E of Genoa, 10km (6 1/4 miles) W of La Spezia.

The Cinque Terre literally means “The five lands”, and these five are the communities of Corniglia, Manarola, Riomaggiore, and Vernazza along with their urban relative Monterosso. The northernmost of these five is Monterosso and it is the tourist hub of the region, with traffic, crowds, and the only notable example of contemporary urban life here. The other four are inaccessible by road, and are pure rural villages in an agricultural belt lush with gardens and vineyards.  All the five are situated among olive and chestnut groves on steep, rocky terrain overlooking the gulf of Genoa. 

This whole area is a gastronomist’s paradise. Its culinary delights are dishes based on the produce of from forest, field, and sea. The land here yields an incredible variety of edible mushrooms; and oregano, borage, rosemary, and sage grow in abundance. The pine nuts necessary to pesto are easilygathered from the forests, as are chestnuts for making flour and olives for the oil that is the foundation of all dishes. Garlic and leeks form the essence of sautéed dishes, and beets turn up without warning in ravioli and other dishes. Fishing boats add their rich catches of anchovies, mussels, squid, octopus, and shellfish. To wash it all down, vineyards produce Sciacchetra, a DOC wine, rarer than many other Italian varieties because of the low 25% yield a feature of the Vermentino, Bosco, and Albarola grapes from which it's derived. 

Tourists normally go to the villages by the guided excursion boats, but if you really want to get to know the region it is much better to trek along the paths that wander picturesquely for miles across the hills and through the forests.