the view over Vernazza, Cinque Terre from the top of its medieval tower

…or ‘five lands’ are the colorful Ligurian villages hugging the rugged coastline of the Italian Riviera which have maintained their precious antiquated state, partially due to their inaccessibility by cars, prompting a 1997 UNESCO World Heritage Site designation, which resulted in recent ramped up tourist activity – evidenced by our Italian friend and host who grew up near by and remembers not too long ago when you had to sneak through a fence to get to the path connecting the five towns – but today we paid our 5 Euro and enjoyed a hike from Vernazza to Corniglia.