wave of mutilation

This string of five coastal towns – this Cinque Terre, composed of Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and Monterosso from head to tail – certainly has its appeal. If you like a pristine and charming coastal beauty with jutting promontories and precipitous, sheer-face drops into a churning sea, then Cinque Terre should top your list of places to visit. And if you like endless hiking trails, and looking down onto towns spread like brickwork butter over mountainous loaves of bread, then Cinque Terre could very well be your heaven.

But for me, Cinque Terre was a bit of a disappointment, and a bit of a contradiction in itself. I expected a place like this to be calm and peaceful – with just you and nature and the crashing waves and no other sound – but Cinque Terre is, pound for pound, the most tourist-overrun destination I have visited so far, and that includes Bruges. And when the town you are staying in is one street long, and up and down you gaze upon swarms of tourists buzzing around their respective raised and folded guide umbrellas, it can seem a little maddening.

And those waves – the nonstop, incessant crashing against the rocks! I enjoyed the sound at first, I thought it calming and soothing – I sat outside and read to it for hours. But after a while, when it is the only thing that echoes in your head – when it has driven out all other thought with its pounding – when it plays on an endless loop over and over and over again, you feel as if it is the soundtrack to some untimely lunacy.

Cinque Terre is beautiful, for sure – but if you visit, do so with a large, soft buffer between yourself and peak season. And bring a lot of money, or a flexible credit card – because food and lodging here are potentially breaking.

Cinque Terre soundtrack – the waves… the waves… the waves…