painting due to its colorful houses.
Vernazza is a pedestrian-only town,
which boasts the 14th century
Ligerian Gothic style Santa
Margherita d’Antichia Church, while
Monterosso al Mare is a bustling
beach community with numerous
restaurants, cafes, and hotels.
Riomaggiore is famous for its wine,
as well as for being an ideal place to
catch a stunning sunset while dining
on some of the best seafood in Italy
(at the harbor side restaurant of
Luca Giaccio). A young, rising-star
chef, Giaccio is devoted to the most
fresh, locally sourced ingredients,
and classical Ligurian cuisine.
Though Cinque Terre is known as
a hiker’s paradise where travelers
can walk on clearly marked paths
that span the various villages, it’s
also nirvana for kayakers. Paddling
from one town to the next provides
50
a unique perspective of the dramatic
scenery on this rugged portion of the
coast. From the water, the villages
look precariously perched upon the
impressive cliffs. Over the centuries,
people carefully built terraces on the
steep landscape right up to edges of
these cliffs. It’s hard to imagine a
more inhospitable place to settle,
especially if you’re a farmer arriving
by sea to this new land.
The distances between villages ar B