CINQUE TERRE INTRODUCTION, Introduction

Hi, my name’s Rick, and I’m your personal guide. Along with MyWoWo, I’d like to welcome you to one of the Wonders of the World: Cinque Terre, a Unesco World Heritage site that is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Italy.

Cinque Terre comprises Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso, ancient villages on the coastline that are now part of the Cinque Terre National Park.

The five villages have ancient origins, but it was during the Middle Ages that they began to flourish, and were fortified with splendid castles and towers.

The most impressive, lasting endeavor of the people of Cinque Terre is the radical change they made to the natural landscape with the construction of terraces, or piane, as they are known locally. The hills here are steep and unstable, so over many centuries, the inhabitants of the area built over 7,000 kilometers of two-meter-high dry-stone walls, without the use of any mortar or cement, in order to create terraces of land on which to grow olives and grapes, as well as common garden vegetables....