North of the Gulf of La Spezia are the five little towns known as Cinque Terre: Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corneglia, Vernazza, and Monterosso al Mare, tiny towns precariously perched on the steep rocky slopes of the Ligurian coast. They used to be forgotten little hamlets because they were hard to reach. They were accessible only by boat or on small country roads weaving though the mountains, where sure-footed donkeys are the main mode of transportation in this hilly terrain. This area is all part of the Cinque Terre National Park, which has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage site.

    But then a railroad was built, connecting these hamlets to the city of La Spezia, which was easily accessible, and the highway to the region was improved. Pretty soon the picturesque towns and the beautiful surroundings, where you can take breathtaking walks and hikes, became the subject of travelers in the know.  And thus tourism got hold of the area in a big way. Now the place is inundated with visitors, especially during the summer, many of them in standard Cinque Terre tourist attire, which are shorts, walking shoes, backpack, and walking poles, faces weathered, creased and hardened by the sun.  It is a favorite place of Rick Steves and if you are there you will surely bump into someone looking very much like a tourist, acting like a tourist, peering into a tome authored by Rick Steves in any of the more than dozen languages his works have been published.  But it is still picturesque and breath-taking, even though it is getting harder to make a nice picture without at least ten other tourists in your field of view.

    It seems that to enjoy the place, you really have to go on your own instead of joining a tour. You’ll have a better chance of snagging a table in that interesting bar-osteria, which only seats a limited number of patrons. And you can wait for the crowd to thin out before making that prize-winning picture, without being bullied by the tour guide to move along.

    But not only Americans come here. Even Italians come here for their vacation. The other surprising thing is that there are very many Dutch tourists everywhere, substantially higher than what can be expected from a small country with a population of only 16.7 million. It seems there is always a Dutchman around wherever you go. If you want to make a non-complimentary comment about a stranger in the crowd, don’t do that in Dutch; he/she may be Dutch and is surely going to pick it up.

    We spent five nights here; we enjoyed our stay immensely.