A morning coffee overlooking a tiny marina in a small and colorful village along the Mediterranean coast of Italy’s Liguria region. Everything about this seems out of a movie. A sip of my cappuccino (overpriced, but in a moment like this, who cares?) and a splash from someone jumping from the rocks into the water. A bite of my cream-filled croissant (with a tinge of lemon here) and the call of a seagull flying overhead. Life in Manarola, part of Italy’s Cinque Terre (five lands) certainly seems perfect.

I am here on an organized “tour” from Florence. I use the word tour loosely, as all the guides do is tell the large group what time to meet and where, as we explore four of the five villages of the Cinque Terre over the course of several hours. A two hour bus ride (longer on the return due to terrible traffic) to Levanto, a town just north of the Cinque Terre, and a series of trains and a boat – these are the costs I pay for through Ciao Florence, as booked on Viator. It saves me some logistical issues, adds some frustrations, and all in all is a roughly break even proposition from booking it myself. But I am here.

Italy’s Cinque Terre is made up of five coastal villages between Genoa and Pisa. A UNESCO World Heritage Site and Italian national park, it is both off the beaten path from a geographical standpoint and very much overrun by tourists. My peaceful morning in Manarola, the fourth village going north to south, will prove to be the outlier as the day goes on and the hordes arrive.

My group visits four of the five towns. From the aforementioned north to south designations, we see towns four, one, two, and five, in that order. It is inefficient, done to have a longer visit over lunch in Monterosso, the largest of the five, and to time a boat between towns one and two (two and three on my itinerary). It isn’t the way I’d have planned it, but hey, it is what it is.

The towns all have their own identities and looks, but all have a few things in common. They have colorful buildings (as do all of the Ligurian towns we pass on the bus). They have a marina. They have a single main street that winds its way back from the marina. They have hills, terraced with agriculture, overlooking them. There are shops and restaurants. And there are a ton of tourists and tour groups.

Manarola is my first and favorite of the four I visit. (We skip Corniglia, the smallest village and the one in the middle.) Perched on a cliff, it offers the best panoramic iconic Cinque Terre view from a steep path to the right side as one faces the marina. We have about an hour here, and after my coffee I walk the hillside for the view, then head all the way up to the top of the single street, checking out the adorable buildings.

A train ride later, we are in Monterosso, the largest of the towns at around 2,000 inhabitants. (For those keeping score, this is town one from north to south.) This town is divided in two. A new side is developed along a large rocky beach area, easily the most accessible waterfront in the area, while the old town is a short walk away by either a hillside road or a flat tunnel. I enjoy a simple sandwich at a beachfront cafe as the clouds roll in, and then walk some of the old town before the rain begins. Fortunately, it stays a drizzle, although I do duck into the town’s church to escape a harder period.

The rain begins in earnest while I am on the boat from Monterosso to Vernazza, town two from north to south. The group has an hour here, and I spend it fairly unhappy under my umbrella. The town has few spaces with cover, and those are overflowing with people. Vernazza has beautiful red buildings, and I do manage to get a few lovely pictures, but all I really want is somewhere dry to sit. I will not find one.

Fortunately, the rain stops while we are on the train to the furthest south of the five towns of the Cinque Terre, Riomaggiore. This is the town that the setting of Pixar’s Luca is based on, with colorful buildings lining both sides of a steep street stretching from the marina up the hill. We have very little time here, basically a half hour since it is a 5-10 minute walk from the train station to the town, so I hurriedly push past tour groups blocking streets and staircases to try to see the marina, and then part of the town. I grab a quick gelato to fortify me for the long bus ride back to Florence, snap a few pictures, and then it is time to board the final train back to Levanto and the waiting bus.

Returning to Florence around 8pm, thirteen hours after we left, I reflect on the day. Was it worthwhile? The short answer is yes. The Cinque Terre is stunningly beautiful, both in terms of the colorful towns and the majestic coastline. Would I choose the tour again? That is a fairly firm no. I’d instead book a direct train from Florence to La Spiezia, the town at the south end of Cinque Terre, and choose two of the towns to see, probably Riomaggiore (it had almost as many food options as Monterosso and is right there at the southern end) and Manarola, and to do so as early as possible in the day, and hopefully remaining until as late as the train schedule would allow in order to avoid the most massive tourist influxes in between.

But given the time constraints of this being my second to last day in Florence and a sort of spur-of-the-moment decision to do, I am grateful to have been able to see such a beautiful place. Or series of beautiful places. Italy’s Cinque Terre is deserving of its status, and of the praise it gets.

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