CinqueTerreMonterossoToVernazza – Exposing The World

Cinque Terre: Monterosso to Vernazza to Riomaggiore

Five Villages on the Tyrrenian Sea

The “Five lands” are villages on the northern coast of Italy located between the Tuscan west coast and Genoa. Two of them can be reached only by boat, one only by road from above, and three are on the local rail line from La Spezia, buy all of them are connected by a coastal footpath, and by one at the top of the cliff.

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**We begin by taking a ferry to the northernmost village, Monterosse al Mare**

**Manarola spreads out onto a point above the harbor**

**Corniglia isthe one Cinque Terre village without a harbor. It is served by road.**

**Monterosso al Mare, still being rebuilt after the disastrous fall flood of 2011**

Each of the villages is built on a steep natural wash running down the mountainside, with a concrete roof over the was serving as the main street. Monterosso’s wash emerges where the yellow construction equipment is standing.

Monterosso al Mare

Each of the Cinque Terre. Villages was built along its own narrow ravines snaking down from the hilltops to the sea. Each village roofed over its ravine to form a Main Street with a storm drainage below it. October is the rainy season, when storms riding the libecho wind from the African coast can drop over twenty inches of rain in one day. Sufficiently strong autumn storms can overwhelm the drainage system and cause street flooding. One particular storm in 2011 devastated Monterosso and Vernazza.