I have to confess to a love-hate relationship with Cinque Terre, a spectacular portion of the Italian Riviera, in Luguria, that has become very, very popular with tourists over the last ten or fifteen years, possibly owing to the 1997 designation of Cinque Terre as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  I had never heard of it until a friend brought me there in 2000 and I must admit that I was completely enchanted by the colorful houses precariously hugging the cliffs, the charming harbors for the fishing boats, and the natural beauty of the coastline.  For the uninitiated, the Cinque Terre, or Five Lands, is a series of five fishing villages teetering on the terraced rocks on the coast of the Ligurian Sea just south of Genoa.  Since there is no automobile access in the villages you must explore them by foot and get from one to the other either by train or boat.  Herein lies the problem. Continue reading Cinque Terre →