Cinque Terre - Five Colourful Villages on Italian Coast

Cinque Terre which literary means "Five Lands" is a cluster of 5 small villages on a 8 kilometre stretch in the Italian Riviera coast of Liguria region, north-western Italy. These are;

- Monterosso al Mare

- Vernazza
- Corniglia
- Manarola and
- Riomaggiore

The villages are famous for multi-coloured terraced houses on rugged and steep hills stretching upto deep cliffs overlooking the sea. These also have another unique feature that none of the villages have any motorable connection with outside world and are accessible only by train or boat or through hiking trails.

In order to protect the natural as well as architectural beauty of the region the whole area has been declared as "The Cinque Terre National Park" and is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Here are few images of these towns.

Monterosso al Mare

Image from Flickr is by Treehugger

Image from Flickr is by nicholasngkw

Vernazza

Image from Flickr is by gorbulas_sandybanks

Image from Flickr is by photolupi

Image from Flickr is by smhundro

Corniglia

Image from Flickr is by Massimo

Manarola

Image from Flickr is by driek

Image from Flickr is by nyluke

Image from Flickr is by Ciccio Pizzettaro

Riomaggiore

(Click on the image to see a very nice enlarged view)
Image from Flickr is by Gio-9

Image from Flickr is by Saghita

Image from Panoramio is by Lorenz81

Image from Flickr is by Ogliastra

View location in Google Earth  Google Maps

Main source of information: Wikipedia