Handpicked experience · Pisa
Pisa, Italy
Nine hours up the Ligurian coast in a van of eight, with the one thing nobody mentions: whether you travel between the villages by sea or by rail changes the entire day.
A full day at the UNESCO-listed Cinque Terre, setting out from Pisa
A scenic passage by boat where the weather allows, or by train where it does not
The harbours, lanes and viewpoints of the coastal villages
A small group capped at eight people
Cinque Terre is five villages wedged into a cliff face on the Ligurian coast, about an hour and a quarter north-west of Pisa. No road runs along the shore between them — the only ways to move from one to the next are the sea, the railway, or the footpaths above. This is a day up there with a small group and a van.
The drive leaves Pisa and crosses into Liguria, arriving at the coast for the middle of the day. From there the group moves along the villages by water or by rail depending on conditions, with time in a couple of them, and returns in the late afternoon.
The substitution nobody explains. From the water you see the whole thing: the terraced hillsides, the villages stacked above their harbours, the cliffs between them. The railway covers the same distance in three or four minutes and does it almost entirely inside the rock — the line was cut through the headlands in the 1870s and the great majority of it is tunnel. Between two villages by train you see a platform, a dark window and another platform. If the sea is rough and the boat is off, expect a good day rather than the day in the photographs.
What comes with this is the van, the driving and someone accompanying the group. Getting along the coast means putting yourself on the water or on the railway, and neither of those sits among what your booking already covers, so bring cash and expect to sort it on the day.
A detail that explains what you are looking at. These settlements were originally built on the ridges well above the sea, because a village on the water was a village that Barbary raiders could burn. They only came down to the harbours in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, once the raiding stopped. That is why the parish churches and the oldest walls in several of them sit high on the slope, above and behind everything else.
Not a modern decision. The tall narrow houses were painted in strong distinct shades so that a man coming back in a boat could pick out his own from a distance at sea. The buildings are also entered from two levels — a door onto the lane at the front and another onto a higher lane at the back — because there was never any flat ground to build sideways on.
Said plainly. Roughly four thousand people live across all five villages, and something over three million people come each year. In the middle of a summer day the lanes move at a shuffle and the trains leave people on the platform. Nothing about that makes the place less beautiful, but go in expecting it, and take the first hour of any village away from the main street.
Useful when you sit down. The salted anchovies of Monterosso are a protected regional product and are the genuine speciality of this stretch of coast, not a tourist invention. The basil for pesto grows on the same terraces as the wine, and both taste of a place where everything is grown on a slope by hand.
Open it to pick a date and work out the price.
What the fare covers, and what to budget for separately.
The practical detail, and the answers people actually ask for.
Enormously. From the water you see the terraces, the harbours and the cliffs. The railway runs almost entirely through tunnel, so between villages you see a platform, a dark window and another platform.
They are not listed as included. The booking covers the van, the driving and someone accompanying the group, so carry cash for local transport.
Because the settlements began up on the ridges, out of reach of Barbary raiders, and only moved down to the harbours in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries once the raiding stopped.
So a fisherman could identify his own house from out at sea. The same buildings are entered from two different levels, front and back, because there was no flat ground to build outwards on.
About four thousand people live in the five villages and more than three million visit each year. In midsummer the lanes move at walking pace at best and trains leave people behind.
The salted anchovies of Monterosso, which carry a protected regional designation, and anything with pesto — the basil comes off the same terraces as the wine.